superfreak
Well-known member
Meh, it happens. Her sister moulted to sub-sub-adult today.
Inflation
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Headspace
Well-known member
They do, but you'd really have to push to do damage to it.
I dissected one of my mantids after it had died (the thread is somewhere around here) and the nervous system is tougher than it's made out to be when you look at a drawing of it. I had to look to find the abdominal ganglia.
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kamakiri
Well-known member
Sorry to hear Phil
...back to the inflation in the late phase of molting...here's a sample of what I mean:
I should have also taken a 'deflated' pic after that, but it is nearly paper thin as I am sure you are familiar with your S. limbata
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superfreak
Well-known member
Thats definitely not what i meant. Ive seen my mantids moult many times and never been concerned with inflation, because it wasnt this obvious. She turned into a balloon Ah well, her sister is getting bigger and bigger by the day
Ah well, her sister is getting bigger and bigger by the day kamakiri
Well-known member
superfreak, I know that's not what was going on with your late mantis. The picture is a response to a side discussion between posts #10 thru #14 about the mechanism that allows a mantis to compress liquid or air, and where the space or organ may be to do so.
PhilinYuma
Well-known member
Yeah, we really should do this swelling thing, because there is a nice, well known cause. So for once, a sensible question can have a reasonable answer.
Insect "blood" or hemolymph performs many of the functions of blood, but instead of being contained in a closed vascular system, it bathes the insect's organs. Like air in a balloon, it also exerts pressure on the exoskeleton, and where that is thin, typically in the abdomen, keeps it more or less turgid. It is capable of exerting a wide range of pressure. I don't know about mantids, but in the housefly, it can increase fivefold (that's like yr systolic B/P going from 120 to 600mm/Hg!) Pressure is increased or decreased according to the insect's water and/or air intake through the mouth. Here: This is the best Internet treatment of the insect's circulatory system that I know: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/tut...irculatory.html
I don't think that this increased hemolymph pressure against a moulting mantid's new, soft skin would do much to help ecdysis, though. The only molting action that I can think of, is contraction and relaxation of the abdominal muscles to help work the old skin loose. Certainly, too much pressure of the new skin against the old would make shedding of the latter more difficult. Once the old skin is gone, though, the new skin maintains its integrity while it hardens due to the internal pressure exerted by the hemolymph. A second function of this increased pressure is to fill the wing veins after eclosure, which is one reason why I tend to favor an environmental explanatin for your "crumpled wing" mantids.
I think that that accounts for the abdominal swelling of your mantids immediately after ecdesis, and the return to normal thereafter, but another environmental condition may affect the wing problem. Environmetally, the onset of ecdysis tends to be governed by photoperiod. In the wild, (and often in our pots) the mantis normally molts under the cover of darkness, when its period of vulnerability is less likely to allow its being eaten. At night, higher ambient humidity also tends to decrease. It is a fairly common sight to see newly emerged insects such as butterlies "pumping their wings" first thing in the morning as the sun catches them (well, it is if you get outside early enough
). In bug rooms, where we often work with the lights on way too late (right Katt?) that rhythm is disrumpted and may adversly affect the process. Perhaps it is also worth noting that there is no experimental evidence (unless someone just snuck some past me!) to demonstrate that increased ambient humidity facilitates ecdysis.So there you go. The part about hemolymph pressure mechanism is pretty much text book stuff, though I'm sorry to say that I didn't find anything very useful on the internet, though you may find something useful to show us. The rest is more speculative, but I don't think that it contradicts any known facts.
I hope that this may be of some help.
HaHa! After sending this, I went back to the URL above to do a self-test and came across another great discussion, athttp://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/library/tutorials/internal_anatomy/molting.html on the hormonal cycle that produces ecdysis. At the top of the article, there is what I, in my computer-illiterate way, thought was one of the worst graphs I have ever seen.Then I found that it is deliberately incomplete and that you have to hover over each of the colored enzymes in order to see its place in the cycle! Now all I have to do is copy the graph and name all the bits! What fun!
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cloud jaguar
Well-known member
Sorry for your loss Superfreak and Phil - that always blows when one of our chirpy pets ascends to that mystic garden in the skies.
kamakiri
Well-known member
Phil, thanks for the research! The sinuses/diaphragms are exactly what I was thinking. I had no idea there were 3 distinct chambers, but a failure of the regulating system in either or any of the sinus(es), would cause this problem as found in superfreak's mantis. I always suspected that air was ingested orally for this function and not a part of the respiratory system as I mentioned earlier.
But I think I'm not being clear about the normal function of the post-molt inflation. This is not a problem, nor is it part of the early phases of ecdysis. It is my belief that it is simply a normal part of the final shaping/stretching/hardening process once most of the mantis is out of the old exoskeleton as shown in my picture (forgive me for not rotating it - the manits is hanging head-down). The inflation of the abdomen never happens earlier, that would be a mess. I've watched it many times for all the species I've kept. It's not just my mantises as you've said.
I do think it is possible that an environmental cause like dehydration could still be at the root of the crinkle problem for my mantises, whereby enough hemolyph volume is present to molt properly first, then not enough to pump up the wings after that. None of my first batch limbata were misted or watered since I got them at L1. The photo-period interruption seems much less likely to me, as I have seen mantises molting either way only 1 hour apart with the crinkle wing still finishing in darkness.
I'm thinking that the hemolyph and sinus systems work in conjuntion, and based on your post above I'm guessing you don't?
The genetic theory can still hold if there is a defect in the valving for the hemolyph system when it is time to pump up the wings. I'm sure that is done at a faily high pressure (not going to guess at figures) simply based on the relatively small diameter wing vein system compared to say a butterfly which has further spaced, but larger veins.
Not sure what you are pointing out with the example of butterflies pumping their wings in the morning relating to humidity. My understanding is that the morning pumping is just to collect and distribute heat to muscles in preparation for flight.
Forgive me if I'm creating more confusion for you! :lol:
But I think I'm not being clear about the normal function of the post-molt inflation. This is not a problem, nor is it part of the early phases of ecdysis. It is my belief that it is simply a normal part of the final shaping/stretching/hardening process once most of the mantis is out of the old exoskeleton as shown in my picture (forgive me for not rotating it - the manits is hanging head-down). The inflation of the abdomen never happens earlier, that would be a mess. I've watched it many times for all the species I've kept. It's not just my mantises as you've said.
I do think it is possible that an environmental cause like dehydration could still be at the root of the crinkle problem for my mantises, whereby enough hemolyph volume is present to molt properly first, then not enough to pump up the wings after that. None of my first batch limbata were misted or watered since I got them at L1. The photo-period interruption seems much less likely to me, as I have seen mantises molting either way only 1 hour apart with the crinkle wing still finishing in darkness.
I'm thinking that the hemolyph and sinus systems work in conjuntion, and based on your post above I'm guessing you don't?
The genetic theory can still hold if there is a defect in the valving for the hemolyph system when it is time to pump up the wings. I'm sure that is done at a faily high pressure (not going to guess at figures) simply based on the relatively small diameter wing vein system compared to say a butterfly which has further spaced, but larger veins.
Not sure what you are pointing out with the example of butterflies pumping their wings in the morning relating to humidity. My understanding is that the morning pumping is just to collect and distribute heat to muscles in preparation for flight.
Forgive me if I'm creating more confusion for you! :lol:
PhilinYuma
Well-known member
As regards the post-molt swelling that you portrayed in your pic, Kamakiri, I am in complete agreement. That doesn't mean that we're right, but at least we're not arguing about it.
The reference to butterfies flexing their wings in the morning had absolutely no bearing on the topic whatsoever. When I wrote it, I had not had breakfast, and a combination of mild hypoglycemia and the effects of a hallucinatory drug that I take "for scientific purposes only" had caused a flock of bright neon-purple butterflies to fly around my head. That's the only explantation I can think of.
I wouldn't say that "hemolymph and sinuses work in conjunction," but rather that the sinuses contain the hemolymph during part of its journey through the insect's circulatory system.
Hemolymph just sludges passively backward through the body cavity until it gets sucked into the dorsal tube where the heart actively pumps it forward to the brain where the cycle starts over. Most of the plasma percolates through the large perivisceral sinus. The other two sinuses make sure that the dorsal tube, heart and aorta (pericardial sinus) and the nerve cord (perineural sinus) are constantly bathed in hemolymph by giving them their own compartments. All three empty into the posterior end of the dorsal tube. I assume that the two diaphramatic muscles can alter the size of each sinus, by analogy with the mammalian diaphragm that seperates the chest and abdomen. They could change the pressure of one sinus relative to another, but not the overall pressure exerted by the lymph on the cuticle.
Inflation of the wing veins is caused by muscular action (pulsatile organs) which pump the lymph into the wing veins.
I know that the foregoing is essentially correct, and also that increased hemolymph pressure can be due either to muscular contrraction or increase in fluid (plasma) volume. When it comes to the premorbid abdominal swelling of Superfreak's mantis I can only speculate, pretty much for speculation's sake. She reported that it was gas that escaped. One speculative possibility is that the Malpighian tubules failed due to disease or injury. They are usually described as akin to mammalian kidneys but also share some of the functions of the liver. It is here that catabolic nitrogenous waste is broken down, and harmful gaseous ammonia is converted to urea (remember the good old Krebb's cycle?). I have wondered if the gas in the abdomen wasn't perhaps a mixture of nitrogen, ammonia and other nasty gaseous stuff.
And that's that, until the issue of a genetic mutation comes up again. At the far end of my apartment, the neon-purple butterflies are gathering, beckoning, and I plan to join them shortly.
The reference to butterfies flexing their wings in the morning had absolutely no bearing on the topic whatsoever. When I wrote it, I had not had breakfast, and a combination of mild hypoglycemia and the effects of a hallucinatory drug that I take "for scientific purposes only" had caused a flock of bright neon-purple butterflies to fly around my head. That's the only explantation I can think of.
I wouldn't say that "hemolymph and sinuses work in conjunction," but rather that the sinuses contain the hemolymph during part of its journey through the insect's circulatory system.
Hemolymph just sludges passively backward through the body cavity until it gets sucked into the dorsal tube where the heart actively pumps it forward to the brain where the cycle starts over. Most of the plasma percolates through the large perivisceral sinus. The other two sinuses make sure that the dorsal tube, heart and aorta (pericardial sinus) and the nerve cord (perineural sinus) are constantly bathed in hemolymph by giving them their own compartments. All three empty into the posterior end of the dorsal tube. I assume that the two diaphramatic muscles can alter the size of each sinus, by analogy with the mammalian diaphragm that seperates the chest and abdomen. They could change the pressure of one sinus relative to another, but not the overall pressure exerted by the lymph on the cuticle.
Inflation of the wing veins is caused by muscular action (pulsatile organs) which pump the lymph into the wing veins.
I know that the foregoing is essentially correct, and also that increased hemolymph pressure can be due either to muscular contrraction or increase in fluid (plasma) volume. When it comes to the premorbid abdominal swelling of Superfreak's mantis I can only speculate, pretty much for speculation's sake. She reported that it was gas that escaped. One speculative possibility is that the Malpighian tubules failed due to disease or injury. They are usually described as akin to mammalian kidneys but also share some of the functions of the liver. It is here that catabolic nitrogenous waste is broken down, and harmful gaseous ammonia is converted to urea (remember the good old Krebb's cycle?). I have wondered if the gas in the abdomen wasn't perhaps a mixture of nitrogen, ammonia and other nasty gaseous stuff.
And that's that, until the issue of a genetic mutation comes up again. At the far end of my apartment, the neon-purple butterflies are gathering, beckoning, and I plan to join them shortly.
