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The first female to molt into an adult did so today, just 72 days after receiving it as an L2. It has yet to expand its wings and I'll take a picture after it has expanded them and hardened.

Sorry to hear that she died. This is usually the time of year that mantids start to die off outdoors to the cold or due to old age if they matured earlier in the year.

My orchid mantises tend to avoid capturing food for a couple days after molting, but they will accept and eat prey items if they are offered a pre-killed prey item that they can taste without feeling threatened after the first day. They probably have the tendency not to capture prey items...

I don't recommended feeding yellow jackets since they tend to pick up all sorts of things from feeding on carrion.

Wild oothecae overwinter even in freezing temperatures to hatch when the weather warms sufficiently in late spring. You can find viable oothecae pretty much from when the adults start maturing to after the first nymphs of the year hatch.

The males are unheated at whatever the temperature in my room is and the females are at around the mid to high 80s. The temperatures fluctuate throughout the day, but the males should be getting around room temperature and maybe a bit below that. The humidity isn't monitored, but I wet the piece...

Subadult pair. The male's getting swollen wing buds and should be molting into an adult some time this week. The female went ahead and pooped when I took this photo. This male's gotten some nice reddish pink coloration on his legs. The transparent fringe on the lobes of his legs makes it...

There's a number of things that could be, but what you're describing sounds kind of like when I rolled over a male black widow in my sleep. You may want to go see a doctor and check if it's some sort of bacterial infection.

Your adopted mantis is not a male, but a female. Males of Stagmomantis species have wings that reach past the ends of their abdomens and you can also tell that she is a female because she has female parts rather than male parts at the end of her abdomen, so her weight is entirely normal since...

I majored in zoology at SFSU for my undergrad where I took and thoroughly enjoyed a general entomology course, but I am by no means anywhere near an expert on any of the subjects I learned. I frequently forget terms and concepts and end up having to look them up on the internet or a textbook...

Eighth instar, subadult 49 days after unpacking. They've been kept in 5.5 oz cups, but I'll be moving them to 32 oz cups as they all molt to 8th instars. I already moved this one in anticipation of a molt since their last molts already had them touching the bottoms of their 5.5 oz cups.

Unfortunately, I was going on a trip to another country. Taking them with me was not an option and I did still end up with an adult pair. The female ended up dying to an unknown infection before she laid an ootheca. I suspect it was due to my less hygenic feeder-keeping practices at the time.

The flightless strain of hydei fruit flies I keep will develop the ability to fly when rearing conditions begin to grow poor and the adults begin eclosing at a smaller size. They're big, fat, and completely incapable of flight in the first few generations of every culture, but they become small...

That's one big mayfly!

It's unfortunate, but sometimes these things just happen. Like humans, mantises and other organisms can end up with health problems and there was unfortunately nothing you could have done to save her once she had her prolapse. It may have been a result of her poor start, but it's just as likely...

That's a female. You can kind of see the cleft in the subgenital plate, and it has the larger leg lobes females get.

No, this species rarely mismolts.

When hemolymph oxidizes, it turns black. The prolapse must have either gotten damaged or the thin inner exoskeletal lining started drying out and cracking, allowing the hemolymph to oxidize in contact with air.

One of mine molted and lost its entire right hind leg. It's molted twice and the regenerated leg is now about 2/3 the size it should be, but it has not been hindered by the initial loss and the undersized leg. Yours should have no problems completing molts with a missing leg. It just might end...

If the clearer container was the one holding tabouli, there may be just enough olive oil residue left on the surface to impair climbing.