Cause of death and terrible smell

gynnyr · Dec 27, 2009

Unlike Minnie, the Carolina girl I lost a few weeks back, her counterpart Athena was rather lively until the last 12 hours or so. I returned home from work on Thursday to find her handing out near the bottom of her tank as she had been doing for some time. Thinking of how Minnie went, I pulled her out of the tank and judged how active she was. Her thorax had started to turn brownish and I saw that her one claw was turning brown and black at the end. She did eat a small cricket when I hand fed her and when left unattended, would shuffle around. Very alert, just not moving around too much. I left her in a cup overnight and Christmas morning I found her stiff and dead.

When I got her, she was healthy, or so she seemed, but she was wild-caught, so it's hard to confirm for certain. Within the first few weeks I had her I noticed she started having trouble climbing around her tank and would fall occasionally. Under inspection, I realized she'd chewed off the feet on her claws and could no longer use them to climb about. I left it at that.

A few weeks ago, I suddenly realized she was having a LOT of trouble getting around and had chewed off ALL of her feet. She shimmied up and down the sticks in her enclosure and had some trouble holding on and catching prey at the same time. She did still hunt and catch enough though, so I let her continue on.

My week was so hectic that after I found her dead Friday morning, I left her in the cup with the lid off and set her aside for later pinning. She had lovely wings and despite her lack of feet, she was a lovely specimen. When I got home just a half hour ago there was a terrible odour and i realized after hunting for it, it was coming from her. She rotted, or so it seems, the brown/black spreading up her claws, onto her head and down her thorax.

I've heard mention of it around the board and I'm curious, is it possible for her to have been 'rotting' before she died? I pinned Minerva when she died and she has not smelled at all, nor changed terrible colours. And if it is possible for her to have been rotting, what causes such a situation? Is it something I may have done inadvertantly to her or something she caught before arriving in my care? I'm really curious about this, if only to prevent it from happening again. Not only did I lose my girl, but I can't even spread her to see the beautiful mantis she was at a later time. Super Christmas bummer.

kamakiri · Dec 27, 2009

It is very likely that there was some sort of infection prior to her death. With that many open wounds, it's not really a surprise.

I haven't pinned any of my mantises, but I have noticed that some have turned black very quickly after dying while others do not turn at all. The only way I know of to guarantee that they do not rot is to freeze them right away. I've done that for several specimens that I shipped to Yen, but I didn't get to all of them in time.

gynnyr · Dec 27, 2009

kamakiri said:
It is very likely that there was some sort of infection prior to her death. With that many open wounds, it's not really a surprise. I haven't pinned any of my mantises, but I have noticed that some have turned black very quickly after dying while others do not turn at all. The only way I know of to guarantee that they do not rot is to freeze them right away. I've done that for several specimens that I shipped to Yen, but I didn't get to all of them in time.

Yeah, I was guessing it was some sort of infection, though really I was at a loss what to do with her when she gnawed the rest of them off too. I did a little sniffing around and all I could really find is that they chew them off if there's something wrong. There was over a month between the first two and then the other four, so whatever was wrong was still wrong. I wonder if that guy trying to give them antibiotics had any luck...

Athena was my second adult death, so it was kind of surprising to me, though it kind of makes sense now that I think about it. I froze Minnie when she was on her outs so she wouldn't suffer any longer and that probably stopped any rotting, whereas Athena died in the night and then was left in a cool, but not cold, area for two days. I just didn't want to toss her in the freezer least my landlord find her and leave my stuff on the curb when I got hom, haha.