# What am I doing wrong?!!



## dlemmings (May 28, 2012)

I have had higher mortality with my second set of mantids than the first!!!

okay so my female Creo was mated and laid 3 ooths...the first just hatched and gave me alot of nymphs...momma was due to lay another any day but stopped eating 3 days ago (thats when I noticed the 3 BBF still in her enclosure...fatty used to eat 3 a day plus a cricket) and yesterday before church she was moving along the bottom of her enclosure (a "critter keeper" plastic enclusure with spagum moss substrate and a few branch/twigs...si I assumed she was about to lay since she had laid all three prior ooths on the lower twigs not the ones glud to the top where she normally hangs out.

when I got home she was hanging from a lower twig and I thought she was about to lay so I looked closer....HOLY ###### she had like worms or maggots (looked like the fruitfly maggots in a culture) crawling from &amp; around her ovipositor/butt and the tip of her abdomen was a darker color and her wing looked off center like she was holding it away from her body....I had to run out and only had a moment to peek in on her, but when I got home she was weakly hanging from one raptorial on a low lying twig withe her bottom resting on the bottom of her cage...I misted her and she did not even drink (but was moving enough that I knwe she was alive) I had no choice but to put her in the freezer...so sad right now!

1) had anyone experinced this before...worms/maggots in the Bum?

2) did I do something wrong?...I usually clean and wash the enclosures once a week or at least every other week

3) how can I avoid this in the future?!


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## maybon (May 28, 2012)

Wow that is bad luck... I have left flies with my mantids before assuming that the flies could not harm them! I will not be doing that again, I have only ever heard of this with farm animals (mainly sheep). Very nasty to see / smell...


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## Precarious (May 28, 2012)

Never heard of this. She must have been rotting for a while for that to have happened. Flies will not lay on a healthy mantis.


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## hibiscusmile (May 28, 2012)

Wish I had not read this, I blame all of you for not posting something more interesting tonight, and I won't forget it either,  :gun_bandana: :hammer: :gun_bandana:


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## agent A (May 28, 2012)

I think a cricket bit her and she rotted tht way

Or crix made her constipated and she rotted tht way

Seen female creos rot from constipation a lot


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## dlemmings (May 29, 2012)

Well she was perfectly healty and a very vivid green, she would eat one cricket and 2-3 Blue bottles per day.

I would put in a cricket and then feed fruit flys to small species or nymphs, then feed blue bottles to the bigger mantids and by that time she was munching the cricket, so I would pop in a few flys to keep her fat for next ooth. then I noticed the flys were still there one day, and then the next day but she looked fine and would be in different spots in the enclosure...

litterally it was like overnight that she looked discolored, I was watching her closely waiting for the next ooth...the first clue was the flys not being gone...I doubt strongly that a cricket bit her.

the larva crawling from her abdomen looked pretty much exactly like fruit fly larva I was in fact tempted to let them pupate to see what they eclosed into but I wanted to freeze her out of what had to be discomfort.

i have seen the occasional fruit fly in the enclosures of larger mantids and assumed they were escapes from smaller nymph enclosures or feeding time but cant imagine how they would lay in her abdomen, unless she picked them up from the twig she last laid on.

anyway, I just was asking if some one had experienced this and knew how to avoid a future re-occurance.

meanwhile after work yesterday I cleaned everyones enclosures

(except fresh Nymphs cause there is just too dang many....not sure how I am gonna get them all out without one going missing...)


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