mantis bad hatch?

[Logan_123]

so its been like 7 hours since i noticed three mantids that have hatched out of a ooth and i came home (about 7 hours later) and there is only like 10 now and a few of them are stuck on the egg. Should i do anything? Two of them have there legs stuck and maybe i could help? but i don't want to harm them more on accident.  I think they are carolinas btw

also will there be more to hatch? are these scouts? and will the stuck ones mess up others trying to hatch?

So many more have hatched now and this keeps happening?! There back legs are getting stuck to the ooth and I have no idea why. They aren't really creating a strand to hang down either so I think that has to do with the legs being stuck

 

[Mystymantis]

The same thing happened to a Chinese egg case that hatched for me. A few nymphs came out at a time and they kept having their legs stuck in the thin thread or the egg case. What you can do is put a stick or something next to or underneath the ootheca if it is hanging, so the nymphs can grab it and pull themselves out better. That is what I tried to do and it seemed to help a little.

The egg case might be hatching with the bursts of nymphs due to it not overwintering as long as normal? Not completely sure but it seemed to me at least when my Chinese egg case hatched early the nymphs came out slowly with a few over several days. The ones that came out early are probably scouts.

How is the ootheca positioned? that may help with the strand that the nymphs usually hang from. Is it hanging off the ground?

I don't think the stuck ones will cause problems for the other ones to hatch, but sadly the ones that are stuck might not survive.  You can try to help them, if you are very careful, by using tweezers or two pins to help break the thin strand they are stuck on. (if that is what they are stuck on) Now if they are stuck halfway in the ootheca I don't know what to do. But if you do try this do it very carefully as the nymphs are very delicate. I have helped nymphs that are stuck on an ootheca by the strand before but I don't know if they survived or not. So it might help or it might not.

Their legs are probably getting stuck on the thin egg sheath thing they come out of. If you look carefully at the nymphs as they exit you will notice they seem to have a thin layer around them, at least the back half, as well as the thin strand at the tip of their abdomen, which seems to get stuck on their back legs or their abdomen sometimes. I had this same problem with a Chinese hatch earlier as I mentioned before. Not sure if there is anything you can do to help it though.

 

[Logan_123]

@Mystymantis this is exactly what is happening. So the egg isn't super early but a little. I had the egg hanging on the top and they were getting stuck so I changed the angle, bot sure if it will help though. Some have sadly died but I have like 20-30 that should be fine. More are still hatching and it's been two days! So im expecting more.

 

[cwebster]

Hope the new hatchlings do well.