# The Black Death?



## mantisboy (Aug 30, 2010)

Even I can't believe the number of mantids I keep finding around my house. While I had one pair breeding in a tote, I went to take the garbage out and found another female on the a/c condenser. I had a container in the garage and placed her in it, then took a flashlight to get a better look. She had some blackish/greenish blech coming out of the bottom of her abdomen. I also noticed that her wing tips were stuck to the back of her abdomen fused with this blech. So I put her on some paper towels on my workbench, took a Q-tip and water and started cleaning her wing tips and abdomen off.

Now I have seen my mantids eject waste, like my lab they are solid poops the size of a mouse dropping.

As I was doing this she started puking up a black fluid, it would come like drop forming around her mouth as her head hung low. Within minutes there was a quarter size puddle of this black goo. I had read about this on the forum and had seen enough. I took her back outside and released her a couple of hours ago and she is still in the exact same place...doesn't look good, blech is back coming out of the bottom of her abdomen again. Nothing I used comes into to contact with my other mantids and I never got any of it on my hands. Is this "The Black Death"?


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## Jesskb (Aug 30, 2010)

Although I haven't experienced the "Black Death" disease yet, your descriptions seem to match those that I've read about. Funny to see it in a wild caught mantid, I don't think that I've read about that yet.


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## PhilinYuma (Aug 30, 2010)

"Black death" was a name made up by British hobbyists, i believe, some years ago. Since no one is sure of the cause, exact signs and symptoms or cure (apparently there isn't one) it doesn't seem to be a very helpful name.

But the "death" part is accurate enough. The mantis will die shortly, presumably from some sort of blockage in the digestive tract.

I envy your finding all those wild mantids, though!


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## Orin (Aug 30, 2010)

I thought the name was made up by USA hobbyists, what's your source on that info Phil?


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## mantisboy (Aug 30, 2010)

Yep, it's dead in exactly the same spot I left it at yesterday.


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## LauraMG (Aug 30, 2010)

Bummer. Blockage or bad feeder I would imagine.


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## Jesskb (Aug 30, 2010)

It's interesting because you hear people trying to blame petstore crickets on "black death" but this was a wild caught mantis. On one of the other forums that I occasionally peek at, people warn not to feed crickets because it causes this  which is obviously very untrue.


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## mantisboy (Aug 30, 2010)

Jesskb said:


> It's interesting because you hear people trying to blame petstore crickets on "black death" but this was a wild caught mantis. On one of the other forums that I occasionally peek at, people warn not to feed crickets because it causes this  which is obviously very untrue.


It all new to me, I've only been at this for about 2 weeks. I live on the outskirts of town with lots of corn fields etc. close by. We had a huge population of Hoppers this year which is why I am guessing there are so many mantids. However the last couple of days the temps have been unusually cold with highs in the 60's and lows in the 40's which very atypical for southwestern Idaho. Normal weather for us would highs in the upper 90's to 100's and lows in the mid 70's. After the last couple of cold nights I wonder if I will find any more mantids.

Whatever it was she had it coming out of both ends.


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## PhilinYuma (Aug 30, 2010)

Orin said:


> I thought the name was made up by USA hobbyists, what's your source on that info Phil?


Always gotta have some evidence, Orin, though in this case I was careful to modify the statement with "I believe". The usual etymological tools in a case like this are first use, frequency of use and association, but, if you remember the old nonsense about the origin of "earwig' being "earwing", or Websters 3-edition fantasy about the origin of "jambalaya", you will agree that this is not a very exact science.

So far as I know, the first printed (Internet) reference is on the U.K. Mantis Forum of a few years back. You may remember that they even had a "survey' on the subject, which of course proved nothing. Again, this forum has a very much greater number of citations of the phrase than our own site. I think (quoting from memory) that our o polyglot, Idolomantis once mentioned it here as "what the English call the black death" or something similar.

There are two associations of interest (to me, at least!). The first is that British school kids get two doses of the Black Death in school. The first was the one that decimated Europe in 1348-50 and the second one, The Great Plague that ravaged England in 1665, so the term Black Death is very well known to just about everyone. Also, "black death" in British mantid circles is often associated with "black crix' that I don't think that we have over here.

However, you have been in this bus. for much longer than I, so if you can think of anything to support the idea that it originated here, I'd be interested to hear it.


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## Orin (Aug 30, 2010)

The UK forum is rather new and I've heard questions about black death for years. I think it's only a symptom of dying under various conditions rather than a cause of death since insect blood and body proteins commonly turn black with decomposition.


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## Orin (Aug 30, 2010)

It would be like making up a fanciful plague name for rigor mortis and calling it a cause of death.


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## PhilinYuma (Aug 30, 2010)

Yeah. It's a very interesting tenet of psycholingustics, Orin, that if you give something a name, you gain control over it, hence some tribes who will not give their names to strangers and the fact that some religions, like Judaism will not say the name of G-d. Making up a name, however ridiculous, for "what kills' a mantis blunts the frustration of being absolutely ignorant of the cause of death and our powerlessness to stop it.

My vote goes to "creeping crud" and the dreaded disease that many of us white boys contracted in the army in Kenya, "foot rot".


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## hibiscusmile (Aug 30, 2010)

Or in the days of old, most people died of "comsumption" could of been anything, but thats what they named it! :blink: Course I am not that old, so I don't remember it


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## Schloaty (Sep 1, 2010)

> most people died of "consumption"


I thought consumption was tuberculosis?

Anyway, the black death, if associate with a blocked intestinal tract, may be (and sorry for this one)......

overconsumption!

Thank you, thank you...I'll be here all week - try the veal!


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