White Mantis?

[chuck]

I think I may have a mantis, but I am not sure.

A little while ago while I was feeding something that was white and looked like a shrimp or mantis came out on top of a rock and was watching what I was doing. I dropped some mysis over it, it grabbed a piece and ran under the rock.

It is small enough I could likely pick it up with my turkey baster, but I Wanted to know if anyone had seen a white mantis before...

 

[nunofs]

The one that's still in my tank is pale white, almost translucent... it's not very big -- 1.5" long at most -- I wonder if they only become more colorful when they grow a bit more.

Nuno

 

[MarkO]

usually you can tell by the eyes.

 

[skyedolphan]

remember could also be a pistol shrimp I have found a few tiny ones in my tank see them once or twice then never see them again but will sometimes hear them so they must be growing

 

[conrad]

This critter was found by sight, not by sound, and the behavior doesn't seem appropriate to a pistol shrimp, so that doesn't seem right to me.

I thought I had found a very tiny -- less than 1/2" -- mantis in my 5.5 nano shortly after I set it up. It was as Nuno describes, pale white, almost translucent. It was just out of range of my hand lens, so I couldn't get as good a look as I wanted, but I did watch it for about an hour before it backed too far into the rock. I was pretty sure it was a stomatopod based on the way it was holding its appendages and the rest of the body form, but like I said I didn't have as good a view as I wanted. Still, this observation may add something.

--cn

 

[One Eye]

Like MarkO said, the eyes are a givaway.