# sick bug



## Laura K. (Jul 13, 2007)

Hi,

Our praying mantis may be dying. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as we have become very attached to him/her.

Several months ago, we got an egg casing from our local garden center with the intent of letting them go in our yard once they hatched. Could be Chinese mantis but the container didn't say.

After they hatched (100 or so), my husband became fascinated with them. They began eating each other so we let all of them go but three. (two turned brown and one has stayed green) We fed these wingless fruit flies from Petsmart. They all molted at least 6 times now and are over 2 inches long. As they got a little bigger, we separated them and put crickets in their cages. They seemed a little afraid of the large crickets at first and so we bought the small/tiny size. This seemed to work and I have observed them happily munching a cricket at least once a day. Now, Fu our big brown guy is hanging from a plant in a back bend angle. I noticed that he is barely moving and one eye is green and the other brown. After several hours, I noticed that there appeared to be a tiny drop of blood on his butt.

Is there anything we can do? I have never seen him in this position before. He has always molted hanging from the mesh top of his cage and lat night he was happily munching a cricket. It has been 12 hours since I found him looking weird. I hate to think he is suffering. Could the crickets have made him sick.


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## Morpheus uk (Jul 13, 2007)

Ugh, dont say sick plz!

Maybe a case of diorea caused by too much humidity i think, ir he may be shedding to adult, the biggest shed of them all


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## OGIGA (Jul 13, 2007)

Wow, amazing that you raised all three so far! This species have high mortality in the beginning. Anyway, crickets from PetCo have led to the death of a lot of valued mantises but they usually just die cleanly. About stuff coming from their butt... I had two female adults die after they had brown/black goo coming out rather than hard feces for a few weeks. It might be a digestive problem. If it's really mantis blood (clear green?), then I don't know what to say.


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## Rick (Jul 13, 2007)

First, try an introduction in the introductions forum. Second, mantids sometimes die like this for unknown reasons, especially chinese nymphs.


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## Asa (Jul 13, 2007)

My lame guess is that its trying to molt.


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## colddigger (Jul 13, 2007)

give it a week and if it's blackish then start wondering


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