# Black spot (on top of eye) S. Lineola



## Giosan (Oct 22, 2007)

Hello,

2 days ago our S. Lineola has molded (it's our first mantis). Everything looked fine except she had a tiny black spot in the corner of one of her eyes. It's not the black spots I've been reading about (caused by rubbing against the glass or something) but it seems to be on top of the eye (like a wound).

It seems to have gotten a little bit bigger these 2 days..












What could this be? The humidity seems about right, so does the temperature..

Also, it lookes like she has some brown spots on the front of her eyes too, I only noticed this yesterday..this does seem to be inside the eye though.

Very rarely she also 'shakes' kinda fast with her 'claws', but this is only about 1 second...

Every help appreciated!


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## Rick (Oct 22, 2007)

Black spots are common and they are not caused by the mantis rubbing on the glass. Hard to tell from your pic but normally the black spots will not hurt the mantis or affect it in any way.


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## Ben.M (Oct 23, 2007)

This has hapened to me a few times, does anyone know *why* this happens???


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## joossa (Oct 23, 2007)

It’s pretty common. As long as the spot does not increase significantly in size over a short period of time, then it is usually not a problem for the mantis.

I have had the “black spot’ become lethal only once with one of my males. It grew rapidly and took over the entire eye, shortly after he died. As stated though, it usually isn’t a problem. Your mantis looks like it’ll be just fine.

Good luck!


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## Precious (Oct 23, 2007)

This is interesting as I am currently experiencing the "phenomenon" of black eye spots in two species and I have my own theory. There is a cloudy, black spot eye that seems to be associated with age - my aging female T. aridifolia sinesis has this and her vision is not so good. But it seems to be part of the decline associated with age. The spot in your photo I am experiencing currently with an H. membranacea. I know what it is but I don't know why. This species moults with a bright blue fluid (which I assume is hemolymph or some bug juice), my p. chlorophaea has done the same but with green fluid. When it dried on my Unicorn's wing, it appeared as a black spot. It was easily removed with a wet q-tip. Back to the story, the spot on the eye resulted as the fluid flowed to and then dried at the lowest point of gravity - the right eye (in this case). Now, the nymph has the dried fluid (a black spot identical to your image) on one eye. I don't want to damage the eye and it makes sense to me that it will come off with the next moult. I think that's what you've got goin' on. Anybody else?


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## Borya (Oct 26, 2007)

I noticed that black spots appear when mantis is being placed for some time into a small container, which is just a bit larger than the mantis itself.


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