First death of the year...

[Domanating]

One of my male Mantis Religiosa died at approximately 2 hours ago and i was wondering if the cause of death was my fault. Here's the story:

I already posted an image of this this praying-mantis, it's dwarf seized male with deformed wings, one of them never even developed.

You can see that although deformed, the wings of the mantid are very clean, however yesterday i noticed that the wings were getting pretty dirty, all brown and black (note: the pictures above were taken about 3 weeks ago). The wing bud of one of the wings was completely black and it was maybe spreading to upper part of the thorax. So i decided to cut 2 of the wings off. One was still usable so i let that one be. The day after, which is today, i found the male i treated with its 4 hind legs unusable. Only the claws were working and by that time he was somewhat active but as time passed he was slowly shutting down until death, 2 hours ago.

Note: for people that don't know, those large black spots on the side of the thorax are the normal color pattern of this species. Only the areas i highlighted are the abnormal black spots. The drop you see on its mouth isn't vomit but just some honey i gave to him to hope for some miraculous recovery. He refused to consume it.

Now here's the question: Was it my fault? He died precisely the day after i cut off the 2 wings. Was it just a coincidence or did i open the wound in the wing bud causing a deadly infection?

Theories that support the fact that i killed him are: 1st it's not normal for a male to die so early in Autumn and 2nd he didn't have the typical convulsions that mantids use to have when they die from old age. He only had a few foreleg spasms, a peaceful death i may say.

I would like to know your opinion about this early death. Thanks in advance.

 

[lunarstorm]

I'm new to this so take my answer for whatever it's worth.

Verdict: not your fault. Though we can't see your enclosure, humidity, temperature, feeding details, etc. it looks to me like your mantis got sick and that happens. When it's their time, they go. You did everything you could but sometimes they die without explanation.

 

[ismart]

For him to have gotten infected like that, my guess is you cut the wings to close to the body.

 

[Domanating]

I'm new to this so take my answer for whatever it's worth.

Verdict: not your fault. Though we can't see your enclosure, humidity, temperature, feeding details, etc. it looks to me like your mantis got sick and that happens. When it's their time, they go. You did everything you could but sometimes they die without explanation.

The enclosure is spacious enough for an adult to live in, humidity levels are about 60 or 50, no mold or anything like that in the enclosure was found, the dead mantis shares the same enclosure with another male praying-mantis. There's a division between them and the other is healthy. Temperature is irrelevant for this species, only extremes are a problem. They can live between 10 to 40 degrees Celsius. Feeding normal for a male. Eats every 2 days and doesnt even finish its meal like all the other males i have.

Ismart: I thought that too but if i did i would see some blood coming out after the cut but no blood. The praying-mantis didn't even complain when i cut the wing. That wing was probably so bad that he couldn't feel anything there. It could explain why he didn't react at all.

 

[PhilinYuma]

It would be great if you had done something wrong, because then you could avoid it next time, but I believe that the mismolt was accompanied by other, torsion damage that cause the black spots that are usually due to to necrosis often from fungi or a mechanical circulatory issue rather than a bacterial infectioin in my somewhat limited experience. It seems unlikely, pace Ismart, that any infection allowed to enter by cutting the wings would prove fatal in such a short time. It is easy to forget that the external damage that we see after a mismolt can be only half the story. In this case, the failure of the wing to inflate might have been due to a tear that admited a microorganism, most likely a fungus.

Bad luck and an iinteresting report, in any case.

 

[Domanating]

Very scientific speech you got there m8. if the mismolt and the fungus combined were the cause of death, shouldn't he die a bit faster? I found him in the wild just like in the two 1st photos (the day i captured him). I don't know how long he has been an adult in the wild and he lasted 3 weeks in captivity. So if a fungus is the problem it would most likely kill him way faster. I'm not very experienced in this also but i think a fungus infection is a very serious issue, even for humans and the progress is usually slow, so differences in behavior would be noticeable. A mismolt in the other hand, can cause fast and apparently unexplainable deaths but usually shortly after having that mismolt, which isn't the case.

However when you mentioned "mechanical circulatory issue" a theory came up. All insects have the main blood vessel located at the top of the body. The heart is located in the abdomen. My theory is what if the cause of death was actually the infection in the wing bud that spread to the main vain? That infection has been growing throughout the days. The fact that i cut the wings might have just been an unfortunate coincidence. If the infection reached the main blood vessel then the heart would pump all those bacteria or even possibly fungus through all the body causing, quite a fast death. Or the infection destroyed the vain causing internal bleeding and cutting the brain from receiving blood which would slowly shut down the males' legs from working and causing, eventually death. Just another theory.