# hairy caterpillars mantid-proof?



## mantidDecapitator (Aug 23, 2007)

A few months ago I introduced a small, hairy, yellow caterpillar to my sub adult male religiosa's enclosure. The mantid stalked and grasped it as usual but once the hairy spine touched its mouth parts the mantid flipped out. It attempted to eat it once more but them gave up. On top of all this, the mantid never ate again! It would go through the motions of hunting and grasping new food (small grasshoppers, ants, crickets, etc.) but never again brought food to its mouth and died 3 weeks later. Just wondering if anyone here has info concerning this behavior?


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## Rick (Aug 23, 2007)

Some of them have poisions in their skins or hairs. We get some around here in the spring that my mantids like. Avoid anything brightly colored.


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## athicks (Aug 23, 2007)

Also, it's possible that a spine came off the caterpillar and was lodged inside the mantis' mouth. It might have been painful for the mantis to bite anything


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## Ben.M (Aug 24, 2007)

> Also, it's possible that a spine came off the caterpillar and was lodged inside the mantis' mouth. It might have been painful for the mantis to bite anything


No it probably just poisened the mantis :roll:


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## Mantis_Whisper (Sep 7, 2007)

Never touch the hairy caterpillars and never feed them to your animals.

I learned when I was younger that the hairs get stuck in the skin and cause irration, this probably happened to you mantid. Judging from the amount of pain you get from the hairs in your skin... I would say they are poisoned. Sorry for the loss of your mantid.


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## Morpheus uk (Sep 8, 2007)

Yay mst3k heheh, dont actually like the program at all but i laugh my head off during the movies :lol: 

Oh yeah back on topic, the exact same thing happened with my tiny B.mendica althouhg he didnt eat anything unusal or new just pin heads and ruit flies, then all he done was just catch food hold it for a few days then drop it, as you can guess hes now dead


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