G. SMITHIIS!!!!!!!! expensive though...

Yeah my two local fish stores have access to them. One store willingly sells them to people like me, but they don't regularly stock them. They just have access to them if someone wants one, and you're not guarunteed a certain species.

The other LFS has some that they collect. They have all florida live rock straight from the ocean, so naturally there are alot of hitch hiker mantis. As they find them in their rock, they stick them in their giganto storage tank in the back room. An employee said there are dozens of them that he's personally put in there, and the LR storage tank is so big that they mostly don't kill each other.

There are 2 display tanks with mantis in them. One of the display tanks, a shallow HUGE tank in the back, apparently has about 5 in there, all species that could be found in florida (wennerae and others). That tank is huge though, about 1.5 feet depth, but about 8 foot long and maybe 3 feet wide. So it's a giant shallow rectangle and the rockwork is held together with open ended PVC. so it's essentially mantis heaven. One of the mantis that lives in the far left PVC is fully grown at about 3-4 inches long. My mom's actually seen him Then a frag tank has a bright green wennerae that hangs out in there. It's PVC egg crate and rock, and I've seen him run around through the egg crate like it's a jungle gym.

I wouldn't mind paying over $100 for a smithii, as long as it survived being shipped to me. I literally stalked stomatopod.com for a smithii for about a month. I even talked to the owner through email trying to track one down. Those 5 will sell like hot cakes, and if I didn't have Princess right now I'd buy one of those faster than ASAP.

 

Earlier today there were 4 G. Smithii's on stomatopod.com, however now there are only 3. G. Smithii number 004, male, 3 inches long, is not longer on the website. My mom's birthday is coming up in November, and my mom came home today with a 14 Biocube.

You can put two and two together.

I am a happy, happy son.

 

I regularly stocked mantis. In fact, one of the stores pets was a full grown O.s. I kept O.s. obviously but also usually had wennerae or bredini. I only had smitii's once or twice.

If you assure the LFS owner that you'll buy it, I'm sure any of them will special order one for you. There's no guarantee that you'll get a smithii though as they are often mislabeled by the supplier.

 

So there are only 2 of them left already...who bought the 1.5" long one?

 

Yo mama

 

I think "she" already did enough damage!