# POISONED by a Fly / or by an ant?



## TranCE_Productions_Inc (Jul 31, 2007)

Gonna try to make it short here. I recently purchased a sub-adult Chinese Mantis. I fed it one of those sh*t eating flies. Right after the mantis chomped on the fly. It let it go. Started to barf a brown liquid from it's mouth. The tiny spec of fluid smelled like CR*P! At that time there were ants around scouting. The mantis was put on a wired grill and several ants got to it before I noticed. If I hadn't saw what have happend with the ants. The ants would have brought a load of other ones. I removed the ants from the mantis and put it in isolation. It started to become really weak &amp; continued to vomit. The next day half the upper body turned red. Originally it is brown w/ white eyes. But it looks like it had a really high fever and it was struggling. After the redness went away it died and the eyes turned black. It started to rott and smelled very bad. LIKE .


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## OGIGA (Aug 1, 2007)

Eww... I guess we shouldn't let mantises eat flies that ate !


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## bubforever (Aug 1, 2007)

Dang that sucks, i guess thats what happens when you eat something that eats .


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## Asa (Aug 1, 2007)

That makes little sense. :? Mantids in the wild eat flies that eat 'crud' all the time. There should be no problem with that. To tell the truth, I would put my bid on the ants, unless someone else has experienced this.


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## Kriss (Aug 1, 2007)

I have heard about mantid vomiting from other keepers and have had similar experiences myself.

Some of the time the mantid survives other times they die.

There are theories to what causes this but no one knows for sure.


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## Nick Barta (Aug 1, 2007)

Sometimes I have noticed the dark brown discharge before a mantis dies. None of my mantis get "wild caught" food due to time restraints, so the brown fluid is not specifically due to a wild caught cr*p eating episode.

I have noticed a correlation to the liquid either appearing on the side of the enclosure, and death shortly after, although the death does not always follow the discharge. Dead mantids will sometimes have this dicharge on the surface where they die.

Oh Cr*p, I gotta go!

Nick Barta

Mantisplace.com


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## Asa (Aug 1, 2007)

> Oh Cr*p, I gotta go!


Oh that was bad :lol: 

I feed mine wild caught specimens all the time, and have never had that happen. Perhaps there was something in the 'crud'?


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## Morpheus uk (Aug 6, 2007)

What i dont get is that Idolomantids supposidly drop dead shortly after eating a cricket which eats fruit and veg and stuff, yet they survive on flies which eat on festering heaps of POO and rotting corpses?


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## Asa (Aug 6, 2007)

> What i dont get is that Idolomantids supposidly drop dead shortly after eating a cricket which eats fruit and veg and stuff, yet they survive on flies which eat on festering heaps of POO and rotting corpses?


Yeah, that's the thing. I' m thinking it's just one of the crazy diseases they get.


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## JT (Aug 8, 2007)

WHAT? Idolos die if fed crickets??? is that true?


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