Hi all!
I haven't seen a single credible article about the
Mantis Peacock Shrimp. Everywhere they write about how dangerous they are, but in fact they are not evil. They remember the owner, get used to the fish population and know every fish in the aquarium. They never touch these fish. If you want to add a new fish, it's best to plant it further away from the praying mantis shelter so that the fish don't accidentally swim into its hole, otherwise Mantis will kill this fish and throw it out of the hole. Cancer will quickly realize that the new fish is not dangerous for him and will never touch her.
The praying mantis can only kill a frightened fish, which will rush around the aquarium, approaching the praying mantis closely.
I used to have a Peacock Mantis for 9 years and all my fish hid for the night in a very spacious mantis house that I built for him.
As soon as I lowered the net into the aquarium, all my fish always hid in the mantis house. And this is not an isolated case, 4 of my praying mantises behaved in exactly the same way. The first lived 3 years, the rest are much less. I bought them very large.
Males are bright green and always calm, they never hit the owner hard, they scare only when they try to pick up the praying mantis.
Females can be vicious and sometimes it hurts to hit the fingers.
They quickly get used to and can carefully take food from the hands of the owner.
The little peacock mantis is brightly colored as early as 1.5 inches. At a size of 5 inches, the color of the males is more green, the females are slightly yellowish.
They almost never hunt fish.
Shrimp are rarely hunted.
Peacock Mantis prey on Crabs and small snails.
Large snails from 2 inches are of little interest to them.
When you teach a praying mantis to eat shrimp, squid and fish meat directly from your hands or tweezers, your praying mantis will stop hunting altogether and will beg for food from you.
All this information is based only on my personal experience of keeping Peacock Mantis.