Mismolted Taiwan Flower Mantis (Acromantis formosana)

Hey Everyone,

So one of my little buddies, a Taiwan Flower Mantis, has had a bad molt. I found him molting and stuck to a piece of fruit at the bottom of his container. I rescued him gently and put him somewhere safe to dry for a couple days, and this is what he looks like now.



His neck is a little bent, and one of his back legs, (you can't see it in this picture), is bent, and the other back leg doesn't seem to work completely right either. His front arms look okay, though he doesn't hold them in the same way as his siblings do. I haven't seen him eat yet, but he does take water:



It looks like he/she has wing buds, so I'm thinking he has one more molt left. I hope he makes it because I've really bonded with him now. I've tried to offer him food, but he won't take it. I'm thinking he may survive on water till he molts again, at least I'm hoping so.

Do you think it would help to keep him at a little higher temperature so that he'll metabolize a little faster and therefore molt sooner, or would that exasperate his condition since he doesn't have food inside him to help him along?

-Carol

Try to hand feed the mantis a day or two later. Just keep the mantis the same temperature as other the mantis will molt when it is ready to again.

Bugger beat me to it

Well least i can say yours is a girl

Might have to hand feed. Why is there fruit on the bottom of the container?

yes, he is big enough to hand feed with tweezers, once it gets it in its mouth, it should be able to hold onto it if he cant hold in hands, i do mine this way too.

Rick said:

Might have to hand feed. Why is there fruit on the bottom of the container?

Click to expand...

There was a small piece of plum at the bottom of his container because I thought the fruit flies in his container might like to snack before they are eaten. I notice that my mantis tends to stay right above the piece of fruit and take his time picking the fruit flies off at his leisure when he is hungry. If I have 6 fruit flies in a container, 4 of them will usually hang out near the fruit and I think my mantis knows that. So anyway, that's why there was fruit in the container.

she will need food or she won't survive till the next moult.

Hand feeding can be a bit tricky at times, sometimes offering dead prey on tweezers just won't work. I've found the best way to handfeed is to show a live insect on some tweezers and get the mantis attention, then kill the insect and slowly offer the dead insect, legs first to the mantis so that one of the legs touches its mouth, with some luck the mantis will start nibbling and with more luck the mantis will hold onto the food, otherwise be prepared to get a stiff arm <_<

Doing this in the evening seems to work best.

But far more important than any of that is making sure your mantis sheds alright on the final moult. If she had a bad shed to subadult, chances are she will have an even worse moult to adulthood. She will need a better container, ideally one made out of mesh so she has places to grip onto all round when shedding.

The plastic cup you've used will cause another bad moult for sure.

When i need to hand feed i crush the crickets head so it dont harm the mantis, then take the legs off so its not too big and intimidating looking, i then mash it up somewhere a bit so some guts are protruding then touch the liquid bits to the mantids mouth parts, they start to drink then soon realize and grab it.

I had a cricket that I found on its back with a leg twitching. Full grown cricket, did not mash it, or molest it in any way.

My mantis grabbed that sucker.

Hello Everyone,

First of all, thank you so much for all your advice. I took all that knowledge and set about feeding my little buddy tonight and she ate 11 fruitflies! She also drank some water, and she won't take anymore so I think she's good. I notice today that one of her front arms is slightly skewed to the side, I saw her try to grasp the flies I was offering her with her arm and she couldn't quite do it. Instead she grasped the flies in her mouth and just ate them down. I would smash a fruitfly about halfway, just enough for it to be stunned and then put it very close to her mouth and she ate them right up. I was so happy! She didn't really handle much food, but she's still cleaning her arms carefully. I tried to take a picture of her with her full belly, but it's pretty dark in here and I had to use the flash so it's not very clear:





Carol A

Glad she's eating, Carol. Just continue on and hopefully when she molts she'll be good. I have a P. chlorophaea (Quasimodo, lol) that similarly mis-molted due to my not putting him in a larger enclosure quick enough. I've been hand feeding him ever since, and he's molted 2 more times now. His most recent molt was just last night, so I'm not sure how good his raptorial arms are yet. But the bend in his neck is now completely gone.

After the bad molt, he couldn't use his forearms much at all... would just walk around with them upraised like a zombie. The most he could do was eventually use them to kind of prop the food against his mouth. He couldn't grasp anything. After molting again his neck bend was better, but still a little bent. And he finally could grasp the food when I put it up to his mouth. He still dropped it a lot, but he could do it! His most recent molt was just yesterday, so I haven't taken him out yet to see how he is. But his neck is straight as an arrow. I'm not sure if he is sub-adult or still sub-sub yet.

Just thought my experience might help you to know that your little one can make progress. And with some luck and good care, maybe a full, or at least partial, recovery. Good luck with her!

I just wanted to update this post. My mantis has not molted again yet, but she is doing a lot better, she had trouble catching fruit flies so I handfed her for a while using the advice given to me here. But I find that she can catch houseflies if I knock them close to her. Here is a photo of her snacking:



I'm amazed by how much she can eat. I was delighted when I realized she could do it by herself!

-Carol

thats awesome

I'm glad she is eating

Keep up the good work

That's great to hear, Carol!!

Btw... two days after Quasimodo's last molt, I discovered he can also catch flies by himself! Victory is theirs... and ours!

I was about to say she looks too big for fruit flies but then I saw your last pic. Prepare yourself for the possibility her next molt will not go well. The chances are high in her condition.

Andredesz said:

Hey Everyone,So one of my little buddies, a Taiwan Flower Mantis, has had a bad molt. I found her molting and stuck to a piece of fruit at the bottom of her container. I rescued her gently and put her somewhere safe to dry for a couple days, and this is what she looks like now.

Her neck is a little bent, and one of her back legs, (you can't see it in this picture), is bent, and the other back leg doesn't seem to work completely right either. Her front arms look okay, though she doesn't hold them in the same way as his siblings do. I haven't seen her eat yet, but she does take water:

It looks like she has wing buds, so I'm thinking she has one more molt left. I hope she makes it because I've really bonded with her now. I've tried to offer her food, but he won't take it. I'm thinking she may survive on water till she molts again, at least I'm hoping so.

Do you think it would help to keep her at a little higher temperature so that she'll metabolize a little faster and therefore molt sooner, or would that exasperate her condition since she doesn't have food inside her to help her along?

-Carol

Click to expand...

Just another update. My mantis did manage to molt to adulthood pretty successfully. I was worried because one of her back legs was halfway missing, and another did not work well, and so I wondered if she would be able to molt at all since she couldn't hang from things. A few days ago I saw that her wing buds were pretty well swollen and she seemed to be quite ready to molt, the gaps between her abdominal segments were far apart and seemed stretched. Well, when I woke up in the morning I saw her skin on the bottom of the container, and there she was with wings drying. It seems she simply walked out of her old skin. The one leg is still half there, and the other still does not work well, and the slightly crooked angle of her raptorial arm seems more pronounced plus a bit is missing from before the molt, but she's alive still taking feedings.





I notice her neck is not as bent as it was. Here's a before picture:



And now:



So at least the neck issue has been corrected slightly. Unfortunately she can't hold on to larger prey anymore. However last night she was hanging on a plastic vine in my room and the one adult male of this species that I have quickly mounted her. She was able to hold on and didn't fight it, so my challenge now is feeding her enough to promote a healthy egg sack, and hoping she doesn't have trouble with ooth laying.

What's funny is that I have two female adults with wing or leg issues, and the male so far has chosen them as mates above the larger, seemingly healthier adult females. Maybe he knows he has less chance of getting chomped by them. Interesting.

-Carol

So another little update. Earler I mentioned that Wonky cannot hold food herself anymore, but this morning I found that she could! She's rather awkward because her crooked front arm gets in her way and they are often crossed. But this morning a pesky escaped blue bottle was buzzing by my window and I captured it against the glass in an empty mantis container but I accidentally caught the fly against the rim of the container, injuring it. There was a little fluid leaking from its wound so I decided to try to offer it to Wonky, thinking she might be able to eat it off the desk top. At first she didn't seem interested but just as I got the fluid up to her mandibles, she grasped the fly and was able to devour it completely. I was ecstatic because this saved me about half an hour of feeding her individual fruit flies. Normally I can give her just what she can suspend from her mouth, but she worked it out this time and I'm very happy because I like my mantises fat and happy.

Looking great! Glad to see it was a happy ending.

Always nice to see the success stories! Thanks for sharing and updating.

I have an L4 limbata that is somewhat like that missing back leg, bent neck and raptorial arms...but she has actually learned to still hunt crix for herself. It was painful to watch at first, but once she re-learned to strike and 'wrap-up' her prey, I haven't treated her any different than her sisters.