Hi all!
It's been a while since last time I checked in. Baby Queenie, our beloved ghost mantis grew up to become an absolutely gorgeous and sweet adult ghost, and she has sisters! Baby Charlotte, a breathtakingly beautiful violin mantis that has recently become a wonderful adult and their little sister Ella, the sweetest and tiniest and prettiest troublemaking little orchid one could possibly wish for.
However, this post is about their brother, my baby boy Izzie, a stray mantis that quite literally knocked at our door and asked to be taken care of. Whether that's right or not, I instantly fell in love with him, and after playing around with him a bit, we decided to adopt him, built his house and delighted him with some flies. Eventually we earned his whole trust and we love him so so so very much. He also is a fine ballet dancer.
Trying to ID him, we resolved that he is a male bordered mantis. I can't say I'm 100% sure, but it does make sense among native species. If anybody has a different opinion please feel free to share with me, as I might be wrong.
Anyway, here is the problem that is concerning us:
At his second-to-last feeding we reluctantly had to feed him crickets bought from petco, as the fly pupae we ordered were in a terrible delay and Izzie was so hungry he kind of tried to chew on my finger when I gave him water. The boy was starving, we had to feed him.
However, we would soon come to regret such decision, for ever since the crickets (little less than a month ago), he started displaying an unusually large belly that is still not going down. However, Baby Queenie had the same crickets and she is perfectly fine.
We have no idea if he's constipated and what we could possibly do to ease him. We did surprise him pooping occasionally, sort of stringy poop, I don't know if that's normal. We also spotted a tiny dingleberry, so we thought his butt might be obstructed and proceeded to gently wipe it with a damp, clean q-tip. But nothing changed.
We even thought it might be a parasite, like that disgusting horse-hair worm, so we took him out for a "bath" and carefully submerged his lower half in a glass of clean water but nothing came out.
Generally speaking, I noticed that his abdomen has been larger than usual ever since his last molt, but right now it just looks abnormally swollen, especially for a male mantis.
Here are some recent pictures of my boy:
normal, post-molt belly
Further down on this post I attached more pictures of how he usually looked like, pre-molt and post-molt, for comparison purposes.
(I apologize for the pictures not being rotated correctly, I have no idea how that happened)
The other thing that is puzzling us is the stench in his enclosure. I am ashamed to admit that we did neglect to clean up his house more often, but nothing like that (the smell) ever happened with the girls...
The foul smell makes me think of a bacterial infection, but I have no idea how could that happen. The water we give him is distilled and he had no contact with infecting agents as far as we know. I even thought about that time he chewed on my finger, although I do clean my hands with antibacterial soap fairly often. Also, the twigs making up his house have been washed the same way as the twigs in the other enclosures.
Moreover, the fact that the swollen belly happened only after his last molt, makes me think that whatever it might be, it is unlikely that we're dealing with a pre-existing condition. It is also to be noted that the bad smell started weeks before the crickets, so the two things cannot be causally linked, although the stench might have something to do with his swollen belly (thinking of bacteria). The only sensible thing I could think of was to give him more honey...
Lastly, we noticed a little spot in his right eye, and have no clue where that comes from, we don't know if that's something we should be worried about or whether that might be connected to everything else:
Any idea, any useful piece of information that could help my baby boy would be immensely appreciated!
Sam
PICTURES
Here is how my beautiful, dorky baby boy looked like when we first got him:
Izzie's last molt:
Baby boy got wings!
His generally amazing post-molt self:
It's been a while since last time I checked in. Baby Queenie, our beloved ghost mantis grew up to become an absolutely gorgeous and sweet adult ghost, and she has sisters! Baby Charlotte, a breathtakingly beautiful violin mantis that has recently become a wonderful adult and their little sister Ella, the sweetest and tiniest and prettiest troublemaking little orchid one could possibly wish for.
However, this post is about their brother, my baby boy Izzie, a stray mantis that quite literally knocked at our door and asked to be taken care of. Whether that's right or not, I instantly fell in love with him, and after playing around with him a bit, we decided to adopt him, built his house and delighted him with some flies. Eventually we earned his whole trust and we love him so so so very much. He also is a fine ballet dancer.
Trying to ID him, we resolved that he is a male bordered mantis. I can't say I'm 100% sure, but it does make sense among native species. If anybody has a different opinion please feel free to share with me, as I might be wrong.
Anyway, here is the problem that is concerning us:
At his second-to-last feeding we reluctantly had to feed him crickets bought from petco, as the fly pupae we ordered were in a terrible delay and Izzie was so hungry he kind of tried to chew on my finger when I gave him water. The boy was starving, we had to feed him.
However, we would soon come to regret such decision, for ever since the crickets (little less than a month ago), he started displaying an unusually large belly that is still not going down. However, Baby Queenie had the same crickets and she is perfectly fine.
We have no idea if he's constipated and what we could possibly do to ease him. We did surprise him pooping occasionally, sort of stringy poop, I don't know if that's normal. We also spotted a tiny dingleberry, so we thought his butt might be obstructed and proceeded to gently wipe it with a damp, clean q-tip. But nothing changed.
We even thought it might be a parasite, like that disgusting horse-hair worm, so we took him out for a "bath" and carefully submerged his lower half in a glass of clean water but nothing came out.
Generally speaking, I noticed that his abdomen has been larger than usual ever since his last molt, but right now it just looks abnormally swollen, especially for a male mantis.
Here are some recent pictures of my boy:
normal, post-molt belly
Further down on this post I attached more pictures of how he usually looked like, pre-molt and post-molt, for comparison purposes.
(I apologize for the pictures not being rotated correctly, I have no idea how that happened)
The other thing that is puzzling us is the stench in his enclosure. I am ashamed to admit that we did neglect to clean up his house more often, but nothing like that (the smell) ever happened with the girls...
The foul smell makes me think of a bacterial infection, but I have no idea how could that happen. The water we give him is distilled and he had no contact with infecting agents as far as we know. I even thought about that time he chewed on my finger, although I do clean my hands with antibacterial soap fairly often. Also, the twigs making up his house have been washed the same way as the twigs in the other enclosures.
Moreover, the fact that the swollen belly happened only after his last molt, makes me think that whatever it might be, it is unlikely that we're dealing with a pre-existing condition. It is also to be noted that the bad smell started weeks before the crickets, so the two things cannot be causally linked, although the stench might have something to do with his swollen belly (thinking of bacteria). The only sensible thing I could think of was to give him more honey...
Lastly, we noticed a little spot in his right eye, and have no clue where that comes from, we don't know if that's something we should be worried about or whether that might be connected to everything else:
Any idea, any useful piece of information that could help my baby boy would be immensely appreciated!
Sam
PICTURES
Here is how my beautiful, dorky baby boy looked like when we first got him:
Izzie's last molt:
Baby boy got wings!
His generally amazing post-molt self:
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