Help! Adopted Stagmomantis Limbata with swollen belly and dark spot in the right eye

[schlafa]

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:

 

[Ranitomeya]

Your adopted mantis is not a male, but a female. Males of Stagmomantis species have wings that reach past the ends of their abdomens and you can also tell that she is a female because she has female parts rather than male parts at the end of her abdomen, so her weight is entirely normal since she's just going to keep eating and getting fatter as she produces eggs in preparation for laying an ootheca.

The dark spot is likely just some damage from rubbing against something or bumping against something and isn't something you should worry about unless it begins leaking fluids or changing in size.

I can't say why her enclosure might smell bad, but you should try to pinpoint the source of the smell to determine whether it's coming directly from her, her poop, or if it's something else in her enclosure. Dead feeder insects whole or in small uneaten pieces can smell pretty bad if they're allowed to stay moist and rot. The smell will stay around as long as any residue exists within the enclosure. Take her out and smell her, and then take all the items out of the enclosure and smell them.

Edit: I notice you have what I think is a Tillandsia in her enclosure. If water is sitting inside that at the base of its leaves, it will rot and smell quite awful. It's also possible that something crawled inside there and died.

 

[schlafa]

Oh. My. God. My baby boy is a baby girl????!!!

I sort of considered this possibility, in fact I kept thinking that I might be wrong about both the species and the gender, but counting the segments led me to believe that it was a male...I am so glad I decided to make this post, my hope was precisely that someone more knowledgeable than myself would shed some light!

As for the smell I'm going to follow your suggestion and clean the enclosure more thoroughly!

Thank you SO much Ranitomeya!

p.s.: you are indeed correct about the plant, however the smell started before we put that in the enclosure...

 

[schlafa]

Luckily her name is gender-neutral

or maybe I should rename her caitlyn...

 

[Rick]

Oh. My. God. My baby boy is a baby girl????!!!

I sort of considered this possibility, in fact I kept thinking that I might be wrong about both the species and the gender, but counting the segments led me to believe that it was a male...I am so glad I decided to make this post, my hope was precisely that someone more knowledgeable than myself would shed some light!

As for the smell I'm going to follow your suggestion and clean the enclosure more thoroughly!

Thank you SO much Ranitomeya!

p.s.: you are indeed correct about the plant, however the smell started before we put that in the enclosure...

There is no need to count segments on adults. With just a bit of experience you should be able to tell gender on adults with a glance (for most species).

http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7110

 

[mantisman 230]

Indeed a female S. limbata and she seems perfectly fine. However with adults females will have an ovipositor (egg laying apparatus) that looks like a small triangle. Males have claspers and their abdomen looks blunted off and much slimmer.

 

[schlafa]

Thanks Rick, that's a very informing post, I wish I discovered it earlier!

Thanks for confirming mantisman!

You guys have no idea how relieved I am right now! Pheeew

 

[rbird]

I claim no expertise and it is likely that something rotting or ? in the enclosure is the source of the odor BUT is it possible the "smell" noticed is the female giving off pheromones to attract a male? and in enough of a concentration to be noticed by humans? Inside an enclosure the pheromones might concentrate? Just wondering can humans smell the pheromones?

 

[hibiscusmile]

I've never smelled anything from them, usually rotting cricket is pretty bad smell, and sometimes wet frass from just overwatering when cage is a little dirty.

 

[mantisman 230]

Mantis vomit can also have a nasty smell.

 

[schlafa]

rbird: I have no idea!

hibiscusmile: I think you're right about the wet frass, what I do not understand is why the smell persists after I cleaned her enclosure. I plan to clean it again as she's done with the current batch of flies, hopefully the nasty smell will go away...

mantisman: I've never seen her vomit, and thankfully she's is not sick!

 

[PlayingMantis]

The spot is eye rub, and it doesn't seem to affect mantises. Some of my large adults, like Hierodulas and Rhombodera's, have it. Nothing to worry about.

I've noticed that if there's too much frass in the bottom of the container, and if I spray the mantis a little too rigorously, the water pools in the bottom of the container and turns the frass into a stinky, wet mess. That happens only if I've been too lazy with cleaning.

 

[Ghost_Keeper]

IMO (I know this is offtopic) you don't really adopt an adult mantis.. Or any mantis. It's like a lizard or a frog, they're just a pet, not a human, but based on the way you type and your info, I'd say you're either very young, or very old.

 

[schlafa]

I regret to post an update on this ... after a lot of research on this forum on Izzie's condition, we tried to do the best we could to nurse her back to health. However, she, as it were, after looking better for a bit, took a turn for the worse. I cannot be sure, but reading posts about overeating crickets resulting in something that was dubbed 'Black Death' seemed to be eventually poor Izzie's fate. She had foul smelling jet black diarrhea (that almost stained the tip of her abdomen) and then weakened steadily over the course of a few days. The day before, a black spot appeared on her face. It was difficult as it was our first mantis death, and especially because it was not a natural one.

P.S. To Ghost_Keeper - you can adopt a highway. That's not even alive. There are throngs of people who are so close to their pets they view them as like children (especially dog people). So you have your viewpoint and that's fine, but I just think your comment was a bit insensitive and there was no real reason to even post it.

 

[Ranitomeya]

Sorry to hear that she died. This is usually the time of year that mantids start to die off outdoors to the cold or due to old age if they matured earlier in the year.

 

[Orin]

For all members, if you have to write "(I know this is off topic)" in your response, please delete the entire response after you finish writing it, but before hitting the post button.

IMO (I know this is offtopic) ...