# Can anyone help me?



## Gwan-Thwei (Oct 17, 2011)

I need help asap...

I have a mantis named Chance. She is about four inches long, and is missing half an antennae and her front leg walking part on one pincer.

After the weekend, I came back to find her on the ground not moving. I picked her up and saw that her abdomen was small and thin. I fed her some water through a water squirter, and she drank until she was full.

But now that I am holding her, the last segments on her back legs are stiff and won't bend. This includes her back feet. I am unsure if this is because of the dehydration or something to do with the recent laying of the egg case.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!


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## massaman (Oct 17, 2011)

think it is prob too late to do anything and you should introduce yourself as well!


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## minard734 (Oct 17, 2011)

Did the mantid ever mate? Please post a picture of the ooth here. I can usually tell if an ooth is fertile or infertile in Chinese Mantids. I assume it is Chinese, being 4 inches. The Tenodera sinensis (Or Chinese mantid) often dies after laying an ooth if infertile. I don't know why but it seems to just mess them up. It's happened to me with all my infertile females. Takes a few days for them to die but they usually do.


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## hibiscusmile (Oct 17, 2011)

Never heard of anything like that, .... The mantis prob will not make it, she may be underfed or a number of things, nothing u can do but feed and water her and hope.


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## PhilinYuma (Oct 17, 2011)

hibiscusmile said:


> Never heard of anything like that, .... The mantis prob will not make it, she may be underfed or a number of things, nothing u can do but feed and water her and hope.


+1


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## Gwan-Thwei (Oct 17, 2011)

I don't think she is chinese, I found her in a swamp outback behind a building in Utah.

I feed her every three days because she will not eat the whole grasshopper/cricket if given one every day

And it is possible to lay an ootheca without mating? Well, that explains a lot I suppose.

If it helps, she looks exactly like this: http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?app=galleryℑ=602


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## lancaster1313 (Oct 17, 2011)

If she was an adult when you found her, she may have already mated.

Also, she could just be getting old.

The photo looks like a _Tenodera_ species.


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## Gwan-Thwei (Oct 17, 2011)

I suppose, but it wouldn't explain the stiff legs and all.


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## minard734 (Oct 17, 2011)

Ummm... that IS a Chinese mantid. Tenodera sinensis. Not T. angustipennis most likely because they are strictly eastern. T. sinensis all the way.


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## MantidLord (Oct 17, 2011)

Yeah, that's a chinese mantis. I know you're new so you probably don't know how to tell the difference between species but you have an adult female chinese. Also, the leg symptoms you describe is not rare in mantids dying of old age which, is exactly what most mantids in the wild are doing now, dying. Welcome to the forum and don't worry. Hopefully the ooth was fertile and you'll have a lot of nymphs come spring.  If not, there's plenty of places to get more, if not the swamp outback where you got her from.


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## Rick (Oct 18, 2011)

Ryan Minard said:


> Did the mantid ever mate? Please post a picture of the ooth here. I can usually tell if an ooth is fertile or infertile in Chinese Mantids. I assume it is Chinese, being 4 inches. The Tenodera sinensis (Or Chinese mantid) often dies after laying an ooth if infertile. I don't know why but it seems to just mess them up. It's happened to me with all my infertile females. Takes a few days for them to die but they usually do.


Lot of misinformation here in this post. Not one thing is actually true.


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## lancaster1313 (Oct 18, 2011)

I failed to mate all of my Chinese females cause the males were just not up to it. &lt;_&lt; They were all infertile.  

Not one of them died after their first oothecae. Most of them laid a few ugly oothecae (they looked like stalactites) and lived just fine. I don't think that all infertile oothecae come out to look bad, some of them look normal, mine were just ugly for some reason. :mellow:


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## Gwan-Thwei (Oct 18, 2011)

Well damn, I was hoping she'd be okay. Thanks for all the help guys.


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