how long can a praying mantis go without food?

Answers:
It depends on the age of the mantis, but adults can go a week without any ill effects . but that doesn't make it a good idea! Wild animals have to be hardy to survive out there, and a mantis will expect to have 'lean times' when there's hardly any food around.! In nature, that would either be caused by weather conditions making it impossible for mantids to move around, hurricanes for example, or it would be caused by man hacking down the mantid's favourite hunting grounds..!

Young mantis nymphs will not be so hardy - a couple of days, maybe 3, is all they can manage. Again, they're built to live that way - but if you've got a pet mantis and you can't feed it, you should let it free . it will have a far greater chance of survival out there.!

If you DO have a mantis, do you know what to feed it? It's fairly easy these days to order live crickets on-line, or buy them in an exotic pet shop (where they're usually sold as lizard food!) You might be able to catch bugs outside, if you can get a bug catching net (wider ring than a fishing net, white fine-mesh netting.) Butterflies and dragonflies are especially popular!!

If you're going on holiday for more than a week, get someone else to chuck bugs in for the mantis. If you're going for less than a week, or a week at the most, chuck a lot of 'harmless' bugs in before you go - enough to last it a few days. Crickets are not harmless, but they'll do if your mantis isn't going to shed it's skin while you're away.

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For as long as s/he can pray stoopid

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That concerns me. Why are you not feeding him?