Depressing turn of events

[massaman]

Juat when I thought my female orchid mantis would do a perfect molt one of her arms at the end of it became hook shaped and got me all sad the rest of her is fine. I think she is like L5 right now and I am all depressed over this as I wanted a nice clean molt and it looked good till that hook at the end of one her arms. She still has use of her other one but dont know if 2 molts to adult would fix this problem and anyone else ever experience this hook problem?I worry she wont be able to enjoy her food with only one good arm as it was always fun to watch her use both arms but will see!I know I had one armed mantids before but I wanted to have a perfect orchid (sigh)!

 

[ismart]

It could right itself in the next few molts, or get even worse. Only time will tell? Good luck!

 

[massaman]

she cant open the arm that has the hooked end but the other arm is fully functional!

 

[davestreasurechest]

oh man thats terrible , you will have to try and hand feed her , hopfully she will molt better, i have learned that you have to have it humid and moist expecially prior to molting, not near heat source either , but unfortunetly it happens

 

[massaman]

I have had 1 armed mantises eat without assistance before but always made sure the food is not too strong or capable of harming the mantis and this is not a result of humidity I dont think I am thinking like the guy from house and think theres other possibilities of why this happened maybe its genetic or something else!

 

[Rick]

I can't really tell what is wrong from those pics. If only one front leg is messed up she should be fine. Seen plenty of mantids catch food with one front leg.

 

[massaman]

well I can tell you the claw part of the arm may of been chewed off but its strange the shedded skin of this mantis showed two raptorial arms and after the mantis came out only the hook part the finger I think remained and she just finished chewing it off so the theory is she may have eaten her arm off at some point and the hook part was left and she finished that off just now!