mismatched parts?? (part 2)

[SnailQueen]

hi everyone

i just came back from a trip and my eldest chinese mantis (little Eligor) greeted me as a full grown adult! he's my first baby and i'm thrilled... however, during a heroic battle against a piece of furniture with the purpose of showing off his new wings, i noticed his tail looks ruptured or something!

although he's active and doesn't seem to be in pain, it's so scary looking and it makes me sad ;=;

i looked around the forum during my first few visits and if memory serves me right, similar cases were caused by overfeeding, which i haven't done... now i'm thinking it's female and i'm actually starving him/her, but i don't want to give him another wormy and have him explode... x0x omg i don't know what to dooooo.

he's been on a diet of crickets, waxworms, calciworms, cockroaches, the occational flying thingy and acacia honey since he was born... any theories are welcome and greatly appreciated! thanks in advance!

 

[robo mantis]

Should be fine don't feed him for a day or two.

 

[Ben.M]

Yep, just leave him alone for a few days and he should heal up.(i can count 7 segments)

 

[Rick]

Yep, just leave him alone for a few days and he should heal up.(i can count 7 segments)

You shouldn't need to count segments on adults as they look totally different. That is a male and he looks fine. I don't see anything wrong with him.

 

[Ben.M]

Yep, just leave him alone for a few days and he should heal up.(i can count 7 segments)

You shouldn't need to count segments on adults as they look totally different. That is a male and he looks fine. I don't see anything wrong with him.

I've only got 1 chinese and he is a adult male so i didn't know that the females segments are any different

 

[Asa]

I don't see anything wrong.

 

[SnailQueen]

he was acting weird last night, so i left him to his own devices... unfortunately i found him dead this morning. i hope the others don't spontaneously.. x__x too

thanks for your replies, guys :,(

 

[Asa]

That's strange...

 

[Rick]

He looks freshly molted in that pic. If so and you were handling him you may of killed him by excessive handling.

 

[OGIGA]

That would be the saddest thing ever...

 

[SnailQueen]

that can happen...? it was my horrible human germs, then... ohmygoddd i killed my baby monster TT____TT

i don't know how long they need to be alone... is there a specific time period required after a change of clothes?

his last molt was monday at around 7pm. i came home at 11pm or so... and bothered him to feed. i didn't notice the tail thing until thursday, but there was black residue on the wound(?) when he died. arrghhh

 

[Asa]

that can happen...? it was my horrible human germs, then... ohmygoddd i killed my baby monster TT____TT i don't know how long they need to be alone... is there a specific time period required after a change of clothes?

his last molt was monday at around 7pm. i came home at 11pm or so... and bothered him to feed. i didn't notice the tail thing until thursday, but there was black residue on the wound(?) when he died. arrghhh

It doesn't appear that the problem was that you handled them.

 

[Rick]

that can happen...? it was my horrible human germs, then... ohmygoddd i killed my baby monster TT____TT i don't know how long they need to be alone... is there a specific time period required after a change of clothes?

his last molt was monday at around 7pm. i came home at 11pm or so... and bothered him to feed. i didn't notice the tail thing until thursday, but there was black residue on the wound(?) when he died. arrghhh

Not germs. I feel that excessive handling stresses them. A long time ago I used to handle them a lot. They died much like yours did. I don't handle my mantids now unless it's cage cleaning time and that is only very briefly.

 

[Asa]

I just let them crawl a bit over my hands.

 

[pizzuti]

They are really delicate right after they shed their skin because the exoskeleton underneath is still soft and waxy. That's the worst time to try to handle them.

 

[Chrome]

the exact same thing has happened to my mantis as well, but it looks a little worse I think, I have some photos but they are a little... well... rubbish.

I dont know if something is up with him or what :?

 

[sk8erkho]

Same thing happened to one of my Chinese. It happened after a molt when he tried to pull away from the skin I actually watched this long pulling of flesh rip away from his bottom and stayed in the exoskel. For a while he was fine or so I thought. I was really worried he would have problems passing waste but at first it was fine. Later it seemed to get worse especially if he ate a lot and was fairly gut loaded. But, it was the usual amount of food he was already receiving. But, with the bad molt I then reduced the food load but it was too late. Eventually he was not passing as he seemed he should have and I found him one morning with a horrible smell exiting his tank and this fluid streaming from the bottom opening. I then realized he was beginning to rot from the inside out and froze him. He was the coolest. When I would clean his tank before the molt he would just hang out and would walk away and seem lost but was never far from where I left him. Called him "Chewie" because he would chew on my hand when I would hold him from L2-3. He would chew on my sweaters, the mesh strip in his tank to hang from. No matter how full he was he would just chew on stuff!! Miss him a bit!! And also, he did not mind being handled he'd alway reach up find a cool or warm spot and just stay there even while I was on the computer he'd just rest on my mouse hand!!

 

[SnailQueen]

his 3 little brothers also showed an open abdomen after their last moult and they were also very actve/eating/relatively happy until this week.

one started wiggling his bum like so:



~then refused food and limited himself to drinking water so i raised humidity and put him in a separate enclosure with a small cricket, but today he was just extremely lethargic. he was sitting on my lap and died.

i came here to ask if there was a change this could be genetic...

anyway, now i'm pretty sure it's a digestion problem but he doesn't smell icky or anything. thank you so sososososo much for all your replies. i send much love to all the mantis babies. hope this doesn't happen to them too