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Unfortunately, no improvement in her mobility, and she definitely can't hang onto anything with those back legs. I found her on her side in the bottom of the container flailing her legs this morning, and judging by where she was she may have tried to climb onto the lid and fallen again...

Freshly molted children does sound like some special type of horror. 🤣

That's pretty much where we're at. She is alive, and she's mobile in general, but she can't actually stand or pick herself up off a surface, and she can't even hold her thorax upright. She's missing the tarsus on one raptorial leg, and the other one seems to be useless. She cannot grip really...

Well, you guys called it, and I am once again humbled by the fact that no matter how much experience I feel I've gained, in the grand scheme of things I still know nothing. Maple has molted to adulthood, which means either I was off in keeping track of her molts or D lobata don't have an L9 as...

I should've added that I watched her for a while before passing my hand in front of her container or opening the lid, and there was zero of the typical molt squirming occurring. I'm not monitoring internal container temps (because I don't currently have the means), but the room is kept...

Sorry in advance if I talk in circles. Maple is my favorite mantis, so this was not something I wanted to wake up to. My L8 female Deroplatys lobata is acting like she's really sick this morning. She's about due for a molt (it's been 5 weeks), and has been refusing food since her last feeding...

I've got plenty of Gymnetis thula L1-L3 larvae available at $4 each + shipping. Shipping is $7.20 for 1-8 larvae, or $13.65 for 8+ for 2-3 day Priority. I'll have to get quotes for Priority Express. US only due to laws and whatnot.

Pancakes (Rhombodera megaera) just molted to adulthood, and came through beautifully! She's my first adult mantis, and I'm thrilled. She used to be half the size of my fingernail!

Definitely starting to think I'm doing something wrong here. My first order of houseflies was delayed in shipping, and arrived almost entirely hatched out. I put them in a 32oz cup with a moist sugar cube in the bottom and stuck it in the fridge. They lived for a surprisingly long time, and I...

This was the exact opposite of my experience entering Canada with my band. Guy at the border was super pleasant and cheerful. The way back into the US, on the other hand... dude was super shifty, made us pull all of our instruments and equipment out of the van, and then held us for two hours...

I've never heard of banana for mantids, but I'm willing to give it a shot; I'm just not sure how to get them to take it. I'm sure I could get probably any other species I'm keeping to take dead insects (they're all decent enough with mealworm chunks), but the ghosts are a special breed of...

L5 or L6 (can't remember at the moment). I don't feed crickets at all because they die too quickly and there's enough speculation about their safety that it's more comfortable to just do flies and dubias, plus I honestly don't think my ghosts would even take pinhead crickets. I've got some...

My sweet little Pancakes when I got her: She just molted to L9 (which I believe is subadult with Rhombodera megaera). Those wingbuds are comin' in strong! I can't wait to see how big she's going to be!

I had a dud batch of houseflies, so it's been about 10 days since my ghosts have had a good meal. They've eaten, but it's the last of my fruit fly culture, and it's not enough to really bulk them up (their abdomens still look mostly flat). They're so finicky that they will not even attempt to...

I haven't yet, but I'm sort of waiting for it. My female giant shield seems to be mistaking my fingers for prey quite a bit lately when I'm turning her lid over for feedings.

Eh... something significantly more horrible than that involving my Malaysian dead leaf. i feel a bit bad about it, but nature and all that.

I tried to feed her this afternoon, and she seemed interested, but wasn't quite getting the job done. I checked her out under a macro lens and could see that her mandibles and palps were struggling to move but seemed to be as bound up as her legs. I couldn't let her keep suffering. I appreciate...

She made it through the night, but she has clearly lost any meaningful use of any of her limbs. She can move her raptorial arms and rear legs, but not enough to hang herself without the aid of that tape I mentioned. She's still fairly feisty if handled in any way she doesn't like. I honestly...

I screwed up. Long story short I got a new L4 spiny flower mantis yesterday, and I didn't put her straight into a new container. I left her in the bone dry 2/3oz deli cup that she came in overnight and today while I was at work, so naturally she decided to molt. I walked in (specifically to...

Nice! I prefer females when it comes to single specimens, just due to size and the typically more ornate shapes. Lol that seems like solid advice. So far the only ones that haven't fooled me are my ghosts. I'm not even remotely looking forward to trying to *** my spiny flowers.