Chinese mantis eating artificial plant

[Umphrey]

I wasn't sure if this should go in the health issues or feeding section. Anyways, my sub-adult chinese mantis has apparently taken to eating an artificial plant in her enclosure.

I noticed this when I placed a housefly in her cage, the fly landed on the artificial plant and the mantis launched out catching both the plant and the fly. I watched the mantis devour the fly, but the mantis did not let go of the plant, and instead began eating it too. At first I thought she was simply cleaning the fly guts off the plant, but after 10 minutes of this I looked closer, it turns out that she ate a considerable amount of the artificial plant too. I even had to gently poke her with a pencil eraser to get her to cease eating the artificial plant. After removing the artificial plant and examining it I noticed two other spots that have been eaten at, which I can only assume occurred in a similar fashion to the fly.

It's been almost a week, my mantis seems to be quite sluggish and will not take anymore food. I'm worried that the plastic has blocked up the mantid's digestive system, as I have not seen any new mantid poop at the bottom.

I did a lot of reading on mantis care, but I did not read any mention of anything like this. I would like to know if anyone else has had anything similar happen, or if this is just a freak occurrence.

For now I still have some hope, but I am inclined to believe the mantis is a goner.

Mantis and artificial plant:

 

[Rick]

Welcome to the site. The mantis grabbed the plant with its food and thought it was still eating the fly but instead it was eating the plant. It did not seek out the plant to eat it or anything like that. I wouldn't think it would kill the mantis but you will have to wait and see. I don't really know what a sluggish mantis means because most of them sit around all day anyways. Your mantis won't eat probably because it is getting ready to molt based on the pic. The wingbuds are swollen telling me it is about to molt to adult. That will explain the not eating.

 

[Umphrey]

Welcome to the site. The mantis grabbed the plant with its food and thought it was still eating the fly but instead it was eating the plant. It did not seek out the plant to eat it or anything like that. I wouldn't think it would kill the mantis but you will have to wait and see. I don't really know what a sluggish mantis means because most of them sit around all day anyways. Your mantis won't eat probably because it is getting ready to molt based on the pic. The wingbuds are swollen telling me it is about to molt to adult. That will explain the not eating.

Well thank you for the reassurance. I didn't think the mantis was intentionally eating the plant, I just thought it was odd that it would continue eating it for almost 10 minutes, as it has been my experience that a mantis will drop something it does not like. There was more artificial plant eaten than there was fly. By sluggish I mean that the mantis will barely move at all, usually when I handle her she will climb up one hand and onto the other. Now if I pick her up she rests her abdomen on my hand and does not move, just looks around at stuff. For awhile I thought it was simply refusing food before a molt, but I have since noticed the mantis to be very inactive, and has a swollen abdomen. I cleaned the enclosure after I removed the plant, but I have not seen any new mantis droppings since. I have been misting the enclosure once a day now, but I haven't seen the mantis drink from any droplet.

 

[Rick]

How much do you handle it?

 

[The_Asa]

I've had my mantids grab on to a plant while trying to get at a fly, but they always realized the mistake. I have had a mantis that ate some rubber, just starting chewing on it. It died a couple hours afterwards but since it was very recently found, I have my doubts that it was caused by the rubber.

Your mantis sounds like it's just preparing for a molt. The best idea would not to touch or handle it at all.

 

[Umphrey]

How much do you handle it?

Not very much. Whenever I am cleaning its enclosure I simply open it up and let the mantis crawl on my hand, when doing this I'll usually let her climb over my hands for a couple minutes and then transfer the mantis to a holding cell while I clean the terrarium. Sometimes when I have a guest over I'll pick up the mantis so they can get a better view of her, but for the most part I let the mantis be.Just a few minutes ago my mantis for the first time in a week ate something--a waxworm. I'm not sure what this means, given that mantids usually don't eat before a molt. I'm taking this as a good sign though.

 

[hibiscusmile]

A few of mine have done that, it is by mistake as was just said. The only thing I noticed though, is at least with the sheild, they are very hard to make let go of the plant and I set them aside to see if they drop it and usually sorry to say they do not, so I have to take it away from them by force. I have also notice some of the wide arm mantis eating the leaves and this is without there being food in there, I will say if you see this, try to make them let it go and make sure to feed them a little more often. A hungry mantis will eat a lot of things

 

[Krissim Klaw]

I use light mesh cages and sometimes a mantis will miss and get its claws threw the mesh and try to eat my cage when going after the cricket. I found a light squirt with the spray bottle where they are chewing gets them to let go pretty fast, along with flicking their claws in disgust at being watered without permission.

 

[Mantis_Whisper]

I've had mantises grab paper towel and the mesh of their cage before. They don't realize it's not food and dig in anyway.

I however wack the crud out of the cage to scare them away before any damage is done or spray them. I've never had any eat the fake plant before, so I don' t know what effects it has, hopefully she's just sluggish because she's gonna molt.

 

[Umphrey]

Update time

My mantis finally molted just two days ago, everything is fine except one of her wings is slightly messed up. About a week ago I noticed a sudden large amount of mantis droppings, and while cleaning I noticed there were little tiny pieces of plastic sticking out of several of the droppings. I tried to take a picture but my camera couldn't focus properly on something so small.

I don't know if the sluggishness was a result of my mantis getting ready to molt, or if it was the plastic it ate, or perhaps some combination of both. I didn't really expect the mantis to survive. I'm still surprised that a mantis can't tell the difference between a fly and plastic.