aomantids
Member
Hi All,
I've recently three mantises to some kind of little mite. I'm just about finished thoroughly cleaning all enclosures which included new substrate, sticks, silk/plastic plants, etc.
As for these mites: If anyone has information about them I'd sure appreciate it.
Picture attached of the abdomen of the Adult Chinese Male which died. The mites are little translucent, whitish, blobs. I can see them moving around. A brown injured spot can be seen on the abdomen. I don't know if the mites caused this or if it was a mating injury (this male is about 10 weeks old as an adult and had mated two females) and the mites moved in on the injury.
A Europen also died and I found these little critters on her. She was a sub-adult.
Then, OMG! I lost a Ghost - L5 I think. Found these creatures on her also.
So, as stated above I am doing a very thorough cleaning / changeout of all enclosers (about 50 total which takes some time.) I inspected all live manites and not found any of these mites on them.
One thing I suspect is the crickets I've been getting. I only feed crickets to appropiately large adults so as not to risk losing mantises to crickets during molting. So, of the the three deaths only the Chinese had been fed crickets. However, the mites may have been transferred to other, non-cricket-fed mantises, because I used the same graduated cylinder to feed crickets as I use for fruit flies and other flies. (I have stopped doing this!) But, anyway, the local pet store has changed cricket suppliers. The new (black) crickets are very, and I mean VERY stinky. It makes me doubt the quality of the breedgin and wonder if they are infested?
I have not yet identified the mites on the crickets themselves but I'll let you know if I do.
Any thoughts welcome.
Al
I've recently three mantises to some kind of little mite. I'm just about finished thoroughly cleaning all enclosures which included new substrate, sticks, silk/plastic plants, etc.
As for these mites: If anyone has information about them I'd sure appreciate it.
Picture attached of the abdomen of the Adult Chinese Male which died. The mites are little translucent, whitish, blobs. I can see them moving around. A brown injured spot can be seen on the abdomen. I don't know if the mites caused this or if it was a mating injury (this male is about 10 weeks old as an adult and had mated two females) and the mites moved in on the injury.
A Europen also died and I found these little critters on her. She was a sub-adult.
Then, OMG! I lost a Ghost - L5 I think. Found these creatures on her also.
So, as stated above I am doing a very thorough cleaning / changeout of all enclosers (about 50 total which takes some time.) I inspected all live manites and not found any of these mites on them.
One thing I suspect is the crickets I've been getting. I only feed crickets to appropiately large adults so as not to risk losing mantises to crickets during molting. So, of the the three deaths only the Chinese had been fed crickets. However, the mites may have been transferred to other, non-cricket-fed mantises, because I used the same graduated cylinder to feed crickets as I use for fruit flies and other flies. (I have stopped doing this!) But, anyway, the local pet store has changed cricket suppliers. The new (black) crickets are very, and I mean VERY stinky. It makes me doubt the quality of the breedgin and wonder if they are infested?
I have not yet identified the mites on the crickets themselves but I'll let you know if I do.
Any thoughts welcome.
Al
I will never feed anything foul smelling to my mantids again, and always quarantine crickets for a couple of days before feeding them to anything.
