Mantis leg badly bent

Owldoggo · May 23, 2020

The foot on the raptorial leg of one of my mantises is bent up. He hunted effectively and he’s doing fine besides flailing the bent foot about while walking around. I’m not sure I can take a picture because of how small he still is, but the foot, instead of facing down, is facing up. What do you think likely happened? Should I be worried? Will it affect his next molt, or will it heal while molting?

MrGhostMantis · May 23, 2020

It will heal in the next molt. As long as he can hunt, no need to worry!

Owldoggo · May 23, 2020

MrGhostMantis said:
It will heal in the next molt. As long as he can hunt, no need to worry!

Ah, that’s a relief!! I was getting worried for Moriarty for a sec, I would’ve hated to see him get so messed up so soon.

minomantis · May 24, 2020

Idk how small your mantis is, but sometimes it can take a couple molts to heal. So don’t be shocked if it’s not completely healed on the next molt. Just keep feeding and he should be fine! Good luck!

-mino

Owldoggo · May 24, 2020

Update, apparently he’s fine and he just chose to have his leg bent up for a couple hours, flailing around his raptorial leg while he tried to walk like some kind of long-winded joke— he’s a very good actor, I just say, haha!

You’d think mantids don’t do pranks, but I think Moriarty got me good on this one. I checked, too, he didn’t even shed or anything. He was just being dumb.
Here’s a picture of him when I woke up— it’s pretty grainy but you could see he does, in fact, have his legs in tact, unlike yesterday