A prosthesis for an old female

[Domanating]

This female Religiosa has been having some issues with her claws since she freshly molted to adulthood. The problems started when a katydid bit and crushed her right claw tip. The injury is visible in the pic above. It managed to heal itself, although a little out of place, and remained there for 2 months and a half until finally breaking off yesterday.

Unfortunately for her, an infection took place on the left claw and she can no longer use it to hunt while the other had not enough surface to grab prey. So I created for her a tiny prosthetisis to give her more surface area to be able to hunt. It doesn't look very nice but at least it works as planned: It can grab and used for locomotion.

It took about 1 hour to stick that thing to her arm because she wasn't cooperating much. At least i'm satisfied that she uses it well. As for the infection, it's quickly spreading and nearly reaching the elbow, so I might amputate the limb there today.

 

[Sticky]

Very good! I like it! If you have to you can try hand feeding. I loved doing that with Sticky and Fred.

 

[Domanating]

Very good! I like it! If you have to you can try hand feeding. I loved doing that with Sticky and Fred.

I hand fed many aswell but if there's something i don't have is time. And hand feeding when a mantis that cannot hold on to prey is very time consuming. So i try to make some gadgets to help them as well as me

 

[sally]

yes i enjoyed handfeeding Sally when she got old. i am glad she didn't suffer at the end though....

 

[fleurdejoo]

You are awesome and rock!!!

 

[angelofdeathzz]

Well done!

http://youtu.be/4Nfvyny_yBk

 

[SilentDeviL]

wow so cool u fixed the claw.

 

[Paradoxica]

Haha " Six Million Dollar Mantis"

 

[hierodula]

-LOVE IT! thats a great idea.

 

[Precarious]

Haha! Nice!

 

[Digger]

Really laudable work, Dom! What materials did you use to create the prosthesis?

 

[RocknessMonster]

wow! that looks amazing great job!

 

[Malakyoma]

I'm really impressed with this. Good work

 

[Reptiliatus]

Excellent work!

 

[Golden State Vivs]

Wow, that is both amazing and awesome that you took the time to fashion a prosthetic claw for your mantis!

 

[Domanating]

I'm glad you all like my prosthesis

Really laudable work, Dom! What materials did you use to create the prosthesis?

Simply by using a small fragment of a tall dry weed as the connector and pieces of a stick to to make that "tooth" and the spike like end. All gently prepared with a nail clipper and my swiss army knife.

First I made a small gap in the weed fragment to fit what was left of the claw in it, sharpened those stick parts and everything was sticked together with common super glue. The only precaution was making sure the mantis mouth wouldn't touch the prosthesis while the glue was drying. Seems simple but convincing a mantis that what you're doing is harmless and helpful isn't an easy task.

 

[Krissim Klaw]

That is so beyond awesome! She is one lucky girl with you giving her a second lease on life.

 

[shane]

thats really cool!!! its like terminater... im sorry for the infection... but still it wuld be cool to have mantis covered with wood armor!!!

 

[Domanating]

Ok so, today as i looked at her moving around i thought that if i clipped the weed fragment a little more then she could use the wooden tooth a little better. It was so hard to clip that thing that when i did, the prosthesis literally flew off because of the the force I applied. I was kind of disappointed but then i had an idea and made a new and even better prosthesis, far more reliable and made, again, with a dry weed connector and malleable aluminium. Not aluminum foil but something mostly used for can lids, bendable but strong enough. I'll try to get some pics today. (as soon as i find my camera)