To breed or not to breed "imperfect" specimens ?

    Hello guys,


    What do you think about mating mantids that had problems on drying their wings ? will it increase the possibilities for their next generation to have that problem when they became adults too ?


    thanks,


    best regards.

    Hi,

    if its easy to avoid i try to avoid mating "non-perfects".
    So if i have 4 females and one missmoulted i would only mate the good looking 3.


    But if its the last female for the generation i´ll for sure try to make it work.


    Greetings Simon :P

    Mantiden sind doch auch nur missgebildete Schaben.

    :twisted:

    Die Kultur von Honigbienen ist kein Naturschutz.

    I see. So, in fact that can be a genetic legacy. Then, I´ll keep pairing only the perfect ones only, just in case.


    Thank you very much Simon,


    best regards.

    Hey,


    I don't think that that such problems with the wings you mentioned has a lot to do with genetics but with the environmental circumstances. I would agree to choose the perfect ones if you have enough simply because the matings could be more difficult.


    If you want to have genetic selection in your breeding, I would rather select by size or colour (but this can also change duo to the environment). Or you keep them together so you have some sort of 'natural selection'.


    Greetings,

    Leander

    That´s very interesting Leander. In this case I was worried about the wings drying problem specifically, but as you said that problem may be due to environmental conditions, do you know what issues may provoque it ? I thought it was humidity lack, but even increasing it had I some mantids with that problem.


    Best regards.

    That problem happened a lot with rhomboderas. Not very usual in other species, but Just a little bit with acanthops erosula.


    But I´ll try to increase the himidity even more to see what happen.


    Thanks,


    best regards.