Adult hood Molt?

[PrayingMantisPets]

My female Hierodula membranaceais starting to molt now and this is my first adult molt. any tips? I am so nervous!

 

[PrayingMantisPets]

her very back leg is not holding on is she going to molt fine?

 

[mantiseater]

it will probably be fine. good luck!

 

[PrayingMantisPets]

she is now holding on by two legs i am so nervous!

 

[mantiseater]

how far out of the molt is she?

 

[PrayingMantisPets]

im going to post a picture in a second

 

[PrayingMantisPets]

Here is where she is now.

 

[PrayingMantisPets]

i thought she was going to turn into an adult.

 

[PrayingMantisPets]

she fell RIP Greenbean

 

[TheBeesKnees]

Aw, I am so sorry for your loss. :C <3

It looks like she was having a hard time getting out of her molt. .. her raptorials appear pretty stuck. The struggle ofggetting out may have played a factor in why she fell...

Hierodula sp. are a tropical species and require very high humidity. I imagine they must be quite a bit more difficult to raise when you live somewhere drier and colder than their natural habitat.

RIP little lady <3

 

[happy1892]

Hierodula sp. are a tropical species and require very high humidity. I imagine they must be quite a bit more difficult to raise when you live somewhere drier and colder than their natural habitat.

RIP little lady <3

I am not so sure about that. Though I have not kept Hierodula before, I have kept other species of mantises. When I misted several times a day for S. carolina they mismolted, but Deroplatys lobata molted well with almost as much misting. I did have a few mismolts with the D. lobata at the 1st to 2nd instars.

 

[Aryia]

Here is where she is now.

She's stuck by her raptorials. During molting their thorax always stays straight, otherwise it will harden in an odd position and they won't be able to eat. Next time if a mantis looks like they are molting out of sequence, you'll need to manually intervene by gently pulling her raptorials out of her molt or cutting the molt to free her raptorials. You'll need to know for sure when they are stuck, and when they are just taking their time to molt. You can get some experience by watching videos of them molting : ) Intervening during molting is a very delicate procedure and should only be done as a last resort.

I don't mist my Hierodulas often. I provide them a drink every 3 days for young nymphs, and every 5 days for larger individuals. We don't know for sure what causes mismolts yet, my personal guess is dehydration (which can come with the lack of proper humidity), but it definitely isn't necessary to keep constant high humidity. Otherwise all of my mantises would be doing absolutely terrible! Also, if you do notice your mantis going into a molt (aka refusing food --> severe lethargy --> pulsing of abdomen with loosely hanging raptorials), don't disturb them. I don't know how much control mantises have over their molt, but I find that if I stress them during this crucial period (by opening the container, misting them, or giving them food), there seems to be a higher likelihood of complications during the molt.

*Edit: Fixed grammar.... as always zz

 

[TheBeesKnees]

Ah, alright--I will admit all of my Hierodula have been wild caught, and the humidity here is often 80-90%. And so this is why I assumed humidity might be some trouble to maintain; but I have never raised species not native to here, so I have no experience with raising 'exotics'.

I stand corrected :>

 

[PrayingMantisPets]

I sprayed her like crazy! I put a lamp on her before when I saw her getting into position. The humidity increases so much. I turned off the lamp when she started to molt. Later I saw her and her back legs were free, she then fell and she twisted her raptorals. I watched her fall and ran to her help. I started pulling off her excess skin off her raptorals

 

[Aryia]

Ah, alright--I will admit all of my Hierodula have been wild caught, and the humidity here is often 80-90%. And so this is why I assumed humidity might be some trouble to maintain; but I have never raised species not native to here, so I have no experience with raising 'exotics'.

I stand corrected :>

Sorry I didn't mean to correct you, was just stating my own experience. There's a very delicate balance between maintaining high humidity and overmisting due to poor ventilation, my personal solution was just to not mist as much and I haven't had trouble with it. Fun thing about keeping mantises is finding new efficient ways to keep them ^^ I'm sure the system that works for me will most likely not work for everyone else.

 

[Aryia]

I sprayed her like crazy! I put a lamp on her before when I saw her getting into position. The humidity increases so much. I turned off the lamp when she started to molt. Later I saw her and her back legs were free, she then fell and she twisted her raptorals. I watched her fall and ran to her help. I started pulling off her excess skin off her raptorals

The only time interval she could've been helped was before her legs come out of the shed. Mantises usually shed head first, and then pull their raptorials out first (their raptorials will be lined vertically when they are being pulled out). If the raptorials are stuck in this step and their abdomen start coming out first, it creates that weird kink that you see in the picture. The kink will set pretty fast and the deformity alone might be enough to cause the mantis to stop eating. So there would have only been a very short interval in which she could've been "saved", quotation "saved" because it's very dangerous to intervene during molts to begin with.

Don't feel too bad about it, it happens. Sometimes it happens with no reason, some bugs are genetically not meant to make it to adulthood. The only thing I want to suggest is not to do anything special when you see them go into molt, don't spray or change their environment at all. I find that the less I intervene or do anything with my mantises, the better they do (minus the couple that just LOVE to choose horrible spots to molt, those I either save in time or.. maybe were just not meant to be).

 

[Crazy4mantis]

Sorry for your loss