# mismatched parts?? (part 2)



## SnailQueen (Jul 14, 2007)

hi everyone

i just came back from a trip and my eldest chinese mantis (little Eligor) greeted me as a full grown adult! he's my first baby and i'm thrilled... however, during a heroic battle against a piece of furniture with the purpose of showing off his new wings, i noticed his tail looks ruptured or something!







although he's active and doesn't seem to be in pain, it's so scary looking and it makes me sad ;=;

i looked around the forum during my first few visits and if memory serves me right, similar cases were caused by overfeeding, which i haven't done... now i'm thinking it's female and i'm actually starving him/her, but i don't want to give him another wormy and have him explode... x0x omg i don't know what to dooooo.

he's been on a diet of crickets, waxworms, calciworms, cockroaches, the occational flying thingy and acacia honey since he was born... any theories are welcome and greatly appreciated! thanks in advance!


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## robo mantis (Jul 14, 2007)

Should be fine don't feed him for a day or two.


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## Ben.M (Jul 15, 2007)

Yep, just leave *him* alone for a few days and he should heal up.(i can count 7 segments)


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## Rick (Jul 15, 2007)

> Yep, just leave *him* alone for a few days and he should heal up.(i can count 7 segments)


You shouldn't need to count segments on adults as they look totally different. That is a male and he looks fine. I don't see anything wrong with him.


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## Ben.M (Jul 15, 2007)

> > Yep, just leave *him* alone for a few days and he should heal up.(i can count 7 segments)
> 
> 
> You shouldn't need to count segments on adults as they look totally different. That is a male and he looks fine. I don't see anything wrong with him.


I've only got 1 chinese and he is a adult male so i didn't know that the females segments are any different


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## Asa (Jul 15, 2007)

I don't see anything wrong.


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## SnailQueen (Jul 16, 2007)

he was acting weird last night, so i left him to his own devices... unfortunately i found him dead this morning. i hope the others don't spontaneously.. x__x too

thanks for your replies, guys :,(


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## Asa (Jul 16, 2007)

That's strange...


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## Rick (Jul 16, 2007)

He looks freshly molted in that pic. If so and you were handling him you may of killed him by excessive handling.


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## OGIGA (Jul 17, 2007)

That would be the saddest thing ever...


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## SnailQueen (Jul 17, 2007)

that can happen...? it was my horrible human germs, then... ohmygoddd i killed my baby monster TT____TT

i don't know how long they need to be alone... is there a specific time period required after a change of clothes?

his last molt was monday at around 7pm. i came home at 11pm or so... and bothered him to feed. i didn't notice the tail thing until thursday, but there was black residue on the wound(?) when he died. arrghhh


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## Asa (Jul 17, 2007)

> that can happen...? it was my horrible human germs, then... ohmygoddd i killed my baby monster TT____TT i don't know how long they need to be alone... is there a specific time period required after a change of clothes?
> 
> his last molt was monday at around 7pm. i came home at 11pm or so... and bothered him to feed. i didn't notice the tail thing until thursday, but there was black residue on the wound(?) when he died. arrghhh


It doesn't appear that the problem was that you handled them.


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## Rick (Jul 17, 2007)

> that can happen...? it was my horrible human germs, then... ohmygoddd i killed my baby monster TT____TT i don't know how long they need to be alone... is there a specific time period required after a change of clothes?
> 
> his last molt was monday at around 7pm. i came home at 11pm or so... and bothered him to feed. i didn't notice the tail thing until thursday, but there was black residue on the wound(?) when he died. arrghhh


Not germs. I feel that excessive handling stresses them. A long time ago I used to handle them a lot. They died much like yours did. I don't handle my mantids now unless it's cage cleaning time and that is only very briefly.


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## Asa (Jul 17, 2007)

I just let them crawl a bit over my hands.


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## pizzuti (Jul 20, 2007)

They are really delicate right after they shed their skin because the exoskeleton underneath is still soft and waxy. That's the worst time to try to handle them.


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## Chrome (Aug 17, 2007)

the exact same thing has happened to my mantis as well, but it looks a little worse I think, I have some photos but they are a little... well... rubbish.
















I dont know if something is up with him or what :?


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## sk8erkho (Aug 21, 2007)

Same thing happened to one of my Chinese. It happened after a molt when he tried to pull away from the skin I actually watched this long pulling of flesh rip away from his bottom and stayed in the exoskel. For a while he was fine or so I thought. I was really worried he would have problems passing waste but at first it was fine. Later it seemed to get worse especially if he ate a lot and was fairly gut loaded. But, it was the usual amount of food he was already receiving. But, with the bad molt I then reduced the food load but it was too late. Eventually he was not passing as he seemed he should have and I found him one morning with a horrible smell exiting his tank and this fluid streaming from the bottom opening. I then realized he was beginning to rot from the inside out and froze him. He was the coolest. When I would clean his tank before the molt he would just hang out and would walk away and seem lost but was never far from where I left him. Called him "Chewie" because he would chew on my hand when I would hold him from L2-3. He would chew on my sweaters, the mesh strip in his tank to hang from. No matter how full he was he would just chew on stuff!! Miss him a bit!!  And also, he did not mind being handled he'd alway reach up find a cool or warm spot and just stay there even while I was on the computer he'd just rest on my mouse hand!!


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## SnailQueen (Sep 21, 2007)

his 3 little brothers also showed an open abdomen after their last moult and they were also very actve/eating/relatively happy until this week.

one started wiggling his bum like so:





~then refused food and limited himself to drinking water so i raised humidity and put him in a separate enclosure with a small cricket, but today he was just extremely lethargic. he was sitting on my lap and died.

i came here to ask if there was a change this could be genetic...

anyway, now i'm pretty sure it's a digestion problem but he doesn't smell icky or anything. thank you so sososososo much for all your replies. i send much love to all the mantis babies. hope this doesn't happen to them too


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