Malformed Mouth =o

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Krissim Klaw

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As some of you might remember I started a thread a few weeks back about my female Euchomonella macrops, Hocus Pocus,and her eating problems do to a deformation that occurred in her mouth after shedding. After shedding she was unable to chew through any hard exoskeleton or bits and attempting to would only aggravate her mouth more. I took some pictures of the issue and thought some people in here might find them interesting.

First off here is a picture of her prior to the shedding resulting in the problem. As you can see she appears rather normal.

PrettyGirl.png


The next three pictures are of her after aggravating her mouth while trying to eat.

DeformedMouth.jpg


DeformedMouth2.jpg


deformedMouth3.jpg


After a nights rest her mouth amazingly did finally settle but there were still clearly signs of issues with the continued inability to eat through anything hard. Since her mouth looked like the above pictures all day however I was so shocked at the transformation over night I had to take a picture to prove to myself I wasn't going crazy. :eek:

DeformedMouth4.jpg


Thankfully I was able to hand feed her gooey bits of crickets and she finally shed a couple days ago. It seems her mouth was able to heal itself in the shedding and she can now once again hunt, kill, and eat her food without any help. =3

Here are a couple pictures of what she looks like post shedding.

FixedMouth.jpg


FixedMouth2.jpg


Hope you all enjoyed the pictures.

 
It is amazing what can be fixed with a molt. I just had a mantis where her front legs were a little twisted and she was missing one back leg. Well the twisted front legs are normal now after a molt and the missing back leg grew back about halfway.

 
@revmdn- Thank you, I was so happy to see her eating on her own. Initially when she was having problems I thought for sure I was going to loose her to starvation.

@Hibiscusmile- Lawls she always seems to strike the funniest poses for the camera. B)

@ismart- Thank you. =3

@Rick- It really is amazing isn't it? I first learned how drastic the changes could be with a mantis I got I ended up calling Nubs because he was missing so many parts when I first got him. He also managed to twist one of his back legs up around his back do to a poor shedding. I was debating cutting it off at the time because he couldn't even touch it to the ground but I'm glad I didn't because in the next shedding he straightened it right back up. Then by the time he reached adulthood a few sheds later, he had grown back all the feet, claw pieces, and leg parts that were missing and you would have known he had problems before. XD

 

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