Crime and Punishment - pics

[Brad]

The crime: Attack, murder and ingestion of innocent bristle worm.

The witness: Me

The punishment: Death by Mantis

I'm not one to dole out this kind of punishment based on simply BEING a nastly looking crab. I waited until I witnessed the act in person. This crab was simply becoming too bold and was clearly predatory.

He was easily caught using a glass jigger. I jammed the jigger into the sand bed, leaned over with one edge of the jigger against the LR. The jigger stayed like this for 2 days. On the 3rd day, I waited until the lights went out, then added a piece of silverside (frozen fish) to the jigger. In less than 2 minutes, this crab entered the jigger and was trapped. If I had not been watching, one of my emerald crabs would have been in there also in another minute or two.

So, into the mantis tank he goes. Maybe he could live in there in peace....My mantis is about the same size as this crab...but it was no contest. In fact, it was horrible to watch. It look about 15 minutes, during which not less than 40 violent whacks removed legs, and just generally beat the crab to death.

Until you see a mantis in action against a crab, you really don't understand how violent these little predators can be. Strikes happen way to fast to get photos...but here you go.

 

[foma2000]

thats crazy. sad that you had to let the crab go. couldn't you take it back to the lfs

 

[Brad]

Well...I suppose I could have. But they aren't going to want a predatory crab. I honestly hoped that he could have survived in the mantis tank because of his size.

I gave him a good chance to live in the tank because I attempt to keep all the life on my LR if possible. But once he got too big and aggressive, he had to go.

It made me sad also.

 

[quarryshark]

I caught a mean crab and thought I would do the right thing by taking it to my LFS. All he did was throw it in a tank with a big puffer.....It lasted about 20 seconds. I felt bad and had to walk away.
Unless you have a fuge to put them in, there aren't many options. That crab had taken out my scooter and I suspect a clown that came up missing, he had to go.
Brad, that second pic is a cool shot of your mantis.

 

[aquafreak]

Totally agree with your frustrations... and the method was pretty interesting too... lol.

What kind of crab was it? Decorators can be a nusance I'm told because they are larger and perhaps more predatory.

 

[Brad]

re: What kind..? If you can tell me based on the photo, I'm curious. His legs were hairy (soft), not decorated. Body was plain with orange patches.

 

[Jason]

sigh....... i've got two of those crabs in my reef.... they hitchhiked in on rock. they are to small to do anything right now but I'll probably have to get rid of them eventually...

 

[Phyl]

I've caught 5 of my 6 (why does there always seem to be ONE more of these buggers?!) crabs. Mostly by yanking the rock. I feel like right now if I get one more I'll be happy. I have a local refer waiting for the "last" crab to come out and then he'll put them in his tank. At least they're going to a good home.

 

[Salttanker]

Bully of the sea. Cool to have a Mantis tank though.

Mike

 

[IndyReef]

out of curiosity, what are the mantis' natural predators?

 

[Brad]

what are the mantis' natural predators?

Based on what I've seen, I have a pretty good idea of what they natural prey is.

I would assume that some kind of large fish might find them tasty.

 

[Fluff]

My first mantis was eaten by my eel. He's just a baby and could squeeze into the mantis' burrow.

 

[klam]

Yummm. Boiled mantis tail with some butter

 

[Brad]

That's life. Just as you think you're the top of the food chain...you get eaten!

 

[RocketSeason]

I had a similar battle with one of those very same crabs.

He was blocking up the holes in the rock where my Firefish slept at night. She kept trying to get in, but ultimatly she was out in the "cold" for a couple of days.

Figureing he was becoming a bit to agressive and may even try Killing her, I knew something needed to be done.

Unfortunatly I don't have a tank with a Mantis to exercise, So I ended up dumping the crab in the toilet.

(I wanted to just kill it quickly by smashing it with a hammer, but my fiancee said that would be cruel. She wanted to flush it. )

 

[foma2000]

i know that this will sound bad, and im not a bad person, but i wonder what would happen if two mantises faced off.

 

[Brad]

I had someone tell me the other day that they watched a pistol shrimp and a mantis duke it out....and the pistol won. I was surprised. Apparently, it was an equal weight class bout to boot.