Help! Abdomen stuck to ootheca!

[Cheirogaleidae]

So my female Chinese decided to lay her eggs horizontally rather than vertically as she lacks feet and apparently can't do the whole upside-down thing anymore and is now stuck in the ootheca...perhaps one centimeter of her abdomen is glued to it and won't come off. Anything I can do aside from hack apart the ootheca? SOS!

 

[sufistic]

So my female Chinese decided to lay her eggs horizontally rather than vertically as she lacks feet and apparently can't do the whole upside-down thing anymore and is now stuck in the ootheca...perhaps one centimeter of her abdomen is glued to it and won't come off. Anything I can do aside from hack apart the ootheca? SOS!

Has the ooth hardened? Does it look completed?

 

[Rick]

Just pull them apart.

 

[Orin]

I'd wet it down a bit first before yanking real hard but I don't know of any solvent that would work/help.

 

[ismart]

If it's hardend already? Try and cut some of the foam around her abdomin to get her free.

 

[Rick]

I'd wet it down a bit first before yanking real hard but I don't know of any solvent that would work/help.

Guess you're right. I figured she just got done making the ooth.

 

[Cheirogaleidae]

No, the ootheca had hardened -- I was at my chem final. I have since hacked most of it off, but a cap remains on the end of her abdomen which will probably keep her from defecating. I've tried pulling moderately, but it's quite stuck...I'm afraid to yank on it because her reproductive bits (haven't got the terminology...those wiggly 'fingers' with which they "paint" the ootheca?) are pretty well tangled up in it (separated from the rest of her abdomen by foam, somewhat twisted up). About to try the water thing.

 

[PhilinYuma]

Poor you! Poor mantis! Like Orin, I can think of nothing that would dissolve the ooth, and if something did, it would probably dissolve the mantis, too.

If a first try with water and a stiffish paintbrush (try what artists call "brights") doesn't work, keep on trying, though it's got to be fairly stressful for yr mantis, so give her time to recover between "treatments"! Let us know how yr efforts are successful.

 

[Rick]

As was mentioned, get it wet and remove it.

 

[elf run1]

good luck and please tell us how it goes.

 

[Cheirogaleidae]

I'd wet it down a bit first before yanking real hard but I don't know of any solvent that would work/help.

Ok! I put the very tip of her abdomen under a soft stream of water and gently worked it off. She seems uninjured, although the feces she has produced since then have been waterlogged. Soggy girl. She'll dry out soon enough.

Thanks, everyone, for your help!

 

[batsofchaos]

Glad to hear you got it off without much trouble!

 

[kamakiri]

Just wanted to follow-up on this one...is she still okay? Has she made another ooth since?