Feeding Live

[karazy]

Originally Posted by pinhead

I don't have any problem of feeding live food to most captive animals. Crickets and crabs and even lobsters (into a pot of boiling water) are all invertebrates with no nerve endings in their exoskeletons and a very simple nervous system. Venomous snakes, tarantulas and pythons and constrictors all kill their prey quickly and humanely.

I don't know about live fish with a mantis though. They are slowly being chewed on and eaten alive until something vital is damaged. Seeing how nervous my Foxface, a clownfish being captured and eaten by a mantis would certainly be a stressful situation.

Couldn't you train it to eat crabs?

pinhead we have tried many many times, but as this is a spearer mantis it cant crack open crabs.
also the clown would not suffer, as the mantis jabs right through its prey usually killing almost instantly.