Molting / wing development issue with male S. limbata mantises

Of my 7 S. limbata males that have molted to adult, 3 have not fully pumped up their wings. I have watched most of the molt for those three, and nothing bad happened during the molts that would appear to cause this. No falls, injuries, or inability to get face-up for the late phase of the molt. My initial feeling is that with statistically near 50% of the molts so far having this issue, that it is possibly a genetic problem. I have 6 more L7 males to go, so I will have a larger data sampling over the next week or so. All three molted on different days, each concurrent with one of the normal molts...so that eliminates almost any differences or issues in environmental aspect +/- three hours or so.

Arkanis, have you seen the same problems with the mantises from the same ooth(s)? Or was this from two ooths and maybe it is 100% from one ooth?

I'm definitely not going to try breeding these, I wouldn't want to pass on such a defect.

I'll post pictures later.

It could be genetic, but I doubt it. On nature, any genetic anomaly that causes deformity is seldom passed on. Inbreeding between siblings from the same ooth is generally prevented by the fact that male and female siblings mature at different ages (was that true of yours?), so that the males are obliged to fly off and find receptive females of an apropriate age. Males with stunted wings are unable to do this, so I imagine that it would be unlikely for such a mutant gene to be transmitted.

I have not raised enough mantids to adulthood to speak with authority on this, but I have noticed that butterflies will fail to pump up thir wings when there is insufficient air circulation. Could it be that the circulation in some of your enclosures is at a "tipping" level, sufficient for "activities of daily living," but where some can pump up their wings and some not?

You say that you do not plan on breeding these males, but a F2 generation cross might provide evidence of whether this is a genetic trait or not.

Please keep us posted!

No way to prove it is genetic which I doubt it is. There is likely something in the conditions. I get some sometimes that don't turn out right. I even find them in the wild sometimes with messed up wings.

:lol: It's incest I tell you

Kamakiri, we have 2 male s. limbata adult males - 1 is perfect and one does have gimpy wings. Of our male egyptians 2 of 6 had messed up wings. Still waiting on several (8 or so) s. limbata males to molt to adult. Will let you know how they develop.

We have 1 adult female s. limbata - she is perfectly formed - pink with yellow wings and dark legs. She was more pink as subadult though.

Here's a tentative thought. Do you, Kamakiri live close to the coast? And isn't Pasadena about twenty miles inland? It might be that when the wind is from the west, there is enough salt in the air to cause dessication when the mantid's wing veins are being filled with hemolyph. Everyone seems to have this problem occasionally, but your well cared-for mantids would appear to have a higher incidence than most.

And remember, I said that it was a tentative thought, not a great one!

Thanks for all the repies and ideas. Pictures first...

Molted Thursday morning:



Molted Saturday morning:



Molted Sunday morning:

Main reason that I thought it *could* be a genetic problem was the on-off visible nature of the problem. I also wondered if it could be an issue with nutrition, but I generally feed consistently once mantises of the same generation are individually housed. As far as conditions, I saw the ones on Thursday morning molt starting at 4 and 4:30 am about 12" away from each other. The one that started at 4:30 never caught up when it came to pumping up the wings, otherwise the timing of the respective molts was similar.

Another normal one molted this morning. So now it's 5 normal to 3 abnormal.

hibiscusmile said:

:lol: It's incest I tell you

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Well, it could be Arkanis, weren't these from a wild caught female? We may never know...

Arkanis said:

Kamakiri, we have 2 male s. limbata adult males - 1 is perfect and one does have gimpy wings. Of our male egyptians 2 of 6 had messed up wings. Still waiting on several (8 or so) s. limbata males to molt to adult. Will let you know how they develop.We have 1 adult female s. limbata - she is perfectly formed - pink with yellow wings and dark legs. She was more pink as subadult though.

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Does the gimpy one have wings like I posted all wrinkly still or just messed up like from a fall, but fully pumped up?

That's another thing that was confusing...all 3 adult females have perfect wings. But 3 isn't a very good sampling or even the 4 if we add Arkanis' girl. And just a side note

PhilinYuma said:

Here's a tentative thought. Do you, Kamakiri live close to the coast? And isn't Pasadena about twenty miles inland? It might be that when the wind is from the west, there is enough salt in the air to cause dessication when the mantid's wing veins are being filled with hemolyph. Everyone seems to have this problem occasionally, but your well cared-for mantids would appear to have a higher incidence than most. And remember, I said that it was a tentative thought, not a great one!

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I'm about 10 miles from the coast...

kamakiri said:

Does the gimpy one have wings like I posted all wrinkly still or just messed up like from a fall, but fully pumped up?

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The gimpy winged s. limbata has wings which are full length - they just don't seem like stiff enough to use - kind of limp and bendy.

One of the egyptians males i mentioned does have wings which are not fully pumped and look like the pics you poseted.

~Arkanis

PhilinYuma said:

Everyone seems to have this problem occasionally, but your well cared-for mantids would appear to have a higher incidence than most.

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Maybe that's just it, perhaps they are *not* well cared for. Maybe my typical carrot and oat diet for the feeder crix does not have enough protien, vitamins or something else. I do add honey pollen topically to the crix once in a while, but that is certainly not the feeding norm.

I've thrown in some cat food in for the crix once in a while. More as a 'treat' for them...or for me as I have some twisted pleasure watching them run around with the kibble. Perhaps I should do that more.

My wife thinks perhaps ours need more sunlight or less moisture. Who knows.

I have noticed that the one adult pink female we have seems a little more wimplike than the green ones.

kamakiri said:

Maybe that's just it, perhaps they are *not* well cared for. Maybe my typical carrot and oat diet for the feeder crix does not have enough protien, vitamins or something else. I do add honey pollen topically to the crix once in a while, but that is certainly not the feeding norm.I've thrown in some cat food in for the crix once in a while. More as a 'treat' for them...or for me as I have some twisted pleasure watching them run around with the kibble. Perhaps I should do that more.

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I don't believe it! Your crickets and your mantitids live a life of luxury compared with their relatives in the wild, where starvation is one of the causes of death among mantids. Our local S. limbata eat grasshopper nymphs and small flying insects rather than crickets, and in this arid country, the grasshoppers' poor nutrition may help late developing mantis nymphs for whom even a subadult grasshopper is way too large. As the grass on which they feed begins to go brown on top, the grasshoppers undergo a nutritional diapause and cease to molt until the monsoon depostits .5" (!) of rain , and though, as Rick pointed out elsewhere, wild adults can have deformed wings, it is a rarity, and cricket nutrition is unlikely to be a factor, especialy since my Chinese (see below) was fed mainly on flies and bees (don't you feel better, now? ).

I had a Chinese that molted to adulthood with slightly deformed wings yesterday. This is the only species with which I have problems with molts. It was in a 32oz pot and did not fall or have any physical environmental problems while molting.

I can certainly discount my silly salt spray theory in this case, and shall replace it with another that at least has the virtue of being easily proven or disproven. The lid to the pot is one of those "mel proof" ones with filter paper over the top rather than a wire grid. I wonder if these, in a marginal situation, might limit air circulation to a point where the "inflating" wings don't get quite enough moving air. Has anyone noticed a correlation between these lids and deformed wings, or not?

The saga continues!

PhilinYuma said:

I had a Chinese that molted to adulthood with slightly deformed wings yesterday. This is the only species with which I have problems with molts. It was in a 32oz pot and did not fall or have any physical environmental problems while molting.I can certainly discount my silly salt spray theory in this case, and shall replace it with another that at least has the virtue of being easily proven or disproven. The lid to the pot is one of those "mel proof" ones with filter paper over the top rather than a wire grid. I wonder if these, in a marginal situation, might limit air circulation to a point where the "inflating" wings don't get quite enough moving air. Has anyone noticed a correlation between these lids and deformed wings, or not?

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I don't rear my mantids in the 32 oz. cups, but usually in rigid plastic containers with a sizeable hole in the lid covered with screening. But I have had disproportionaltely more mismolts and deformed wings with the T. sinensis species, even when molting in 12x12 net cages. I think their bigger size (requiring taller/larger containers), a higher tendency to fall while molting (that I've observed), and who knows what else might contribute.

There was one more that failed to pump-up the wings yesterday. This one was even less pumped than the other 3. So that's now 5 normal and 4 abnormal. Most of my lids in this group are the 'cloth' ones with a foam stopper.

We had another male develop perfectly last night. I actually watched it to make sure everything was going well. My wife has a theory that perhaps they see each other, get agitated and forget to pump wings?

Or maybe crinkled wings is the new, fab "style!"

Updated count is 6 normal and 7 krinkle. That's all from this batch, and I only have two males from the 2nd batch at L5.

It looks like the only molting surface in the crinkle-wing mantis enclosure was a piece of sponge in the center of the lid. The mantis also appears to be hanging from it at an angle not conducive to wing-pumping. If the photos represent the only molting surface that your mantises have access to the cause of the crinkle-wings is surely in the lack of proper molting and "pumping" surfaces. In my observations, gravity plays a role in wing-pumping and a nearly vertical position is required (while your mantises have access only to horizontal-oriented textured surfaces). (Okay, maybe not "required" since half of your mantises did manage to position themselves well enough to molt perfectly.)

Peter said:

It looks like the only molting surface in the crinkle-wing mantis enclosure was a piece of sponge in the center of the lid. The mantis also appears to be hanging from it at an angle not conducive to wing-pumping. If the photos represent the only molting surface that your mantises have access to the cause of the crinkle-wings is surely in the lack of proper molting and "pumping" surfaces. In my observations, gravity plays a role in wing-pumping and a nearly vertical position is required. (Okay, maybe not "required" since half of your mantises did manage to position themselves well enough to molt perfectly.)

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The pictures posted are well after the molts are completed. I generally don't take flash pictures of molting and it was waay to dark to try to shoot with the lights off.

I watched a couple of the crinkle molts, and getting in 'proper' position did not seem to be a problem. One of the crinkle molts was just one hour after a normal molt and they were in the same postition with the walking legs on the foam stopper. They all seemed to instinctively know what to do. The concern over the ability to get vertical was one of the reasons that I was watching some of the molts.

I've had other mantises that can't get vertical for the wing pumping and the result is still full pumped wings, just deformed due to gravity. The only other time I've seen wings not get pumped are from mantises that get bitten by crix when molting, but the pool or droplets of leaking blood is an obvious reason for that.