Mediterranean Katydids Gobbling House Crickets

The very night that we first decided to toss in some petstore house crickets (Acheta domestica), our Mediterranean Katydids (Phaneroptera nana) started eating them like no tomorrow!

---

Since our very recent post about one of our sixth instar Mediterranean Katydids (Phaneroptera nana) savagely eating away at another helpless molting fifth instar, there has been yet another case of cannibalism. Today, one of the katydids attempted to molt into adult but must of mismolted or was attacked by others because we found it at the bottom of enclosure almost dead and half eaten. Obviously, these are not our first cases cannibalism we have ever seen in katydids after rearing them for years now, but this is the first time it has really been so serious (probably because of the sever overcrowding of 40+ individuals in one tank).

In the past few weels, we have tried feeding them some killed fruitflies (Drosophila hydei) but since the last of our European Mantises (Mantis religiosa) died off on 6/29, we haven't really been keeping the culture alive. So, out of desperation, we instead went and bought a bag of size small petstore house crickets (Acheta domestica) that they use as feeder insects for reptiles and fish. In the afternoon, we tossed in 6-7 of dead (or, at least half-dead) crickets into the tank to see if they would show any interest in eating them rather than each other. Most katydids are omnivorous, of course, scavenging for dead or vulnerable invertebrates to eat in the wild and we have been seriously depriving them of this in our captive enclosure. We thought that by giving them the opportunity to eat some crickets, we could help deter cannibalism.

The katydids are nocturnal, so we didn't really see any feeding at all right after we put the crickets in. But by nighttime, when we checked on them around 9 PM, they were going to town on the crickets. It was pretty crazy! We had put the crickets in on some leaves so it would be easy to tell if they were eaten or not and it appeared that all but three of them were left and another one was being eaten at the time. Excitedly, we killed a bunch more crickets and dumped them in for the night. Hopefully it helps!

- Brian