MandellaMandy123
Well-known member
Hi Everyone,
I've never had a mantid mismolt when it was young, the only mismolts I've ever had have been from sub-adult to adult. And when my sub adults are molting, something almost always goes wrong. Last year, I had four subadults and two mismolted. I caught two subadult europeans and one mismolted horribly and died. The other came out with crumpled wings but lived until he died of an unrelated infection. Both my subadult S Limbata and my subadult I Oratoria molted perfectly into adulthood, but both were extremely small for their species so I'm sure that helped. (the Iris was only an inch long)
So this year I've caught three europeans. One of them I caught as a pre sub-adult, and it molted to subadult okay. unfortunately, it ran away. The other two I caught as subadults. One molted about three days after I caught it. It was acting really strange and ended up ground molting, coming out of it with deformed wings and bent and twisted legs. She died two days later. The other just molted today, got the bottom half of the exoskeleton off, then fell and is just laying there. It's still alive - if I touch it it moves around, but it's top half is still in the old exoskeleton. Why does this always happen to me? Today's mismolt was kept in medium humidity, but most of the others were in high humidity. The limbata and the oratoria that survived just fine were in mesh containers and I didn't make any preparations for them. What is going on?
These are the only sub-adult to adult molts I've ever had. I usually catch them either as adults, or I catch them young and release them at some point first. My Chinese ooth still hasn't hatched, I'm hoping for better luck with those nymphs.
~Wolfie
I've never had a mantid mismolt when it was young, the only mismolts I've ever had have been from sub-adult to adult. And when my sub adults are molting, something almost always goes wrong. Last year, I had four subadults and two mismolted. I caught two subadult europeans and one mismolted horribly and died. The other came out with crumpled wings but lived until he died of an unrelated infection. Both my subadult S Limbata and my subadult I Oratoria molted perfectly into adulthood, but both were extremely small for their species so I'm sure that helped. (the Iris was only an inch long)
So this year I've caught three europeans. One of them I caught as a pre sub-adult, and it molted to subadult okay. unfortunately, it ran away. The other two I caught as subadults. One molted about three days after I caught it. It was acting really strange and ended up ground molting, coming out of it with deformed wings and bent and twisted legs. She died two days later. The other just molted today, got the bottom half of the exoskeleton off, then fell and is just laying there. It's still alive - if I touch it it moves around, but it's top half is still in the old exoskeleton. Why does this always happen to me? Today's mismolt was kept in medium humidity, but most of the others were in high humidity. The limbata and the oratoria that survived just fine were in mesh containers and I didn't make any preparations for them. What is going on?
These are the only sub-adult to adult molts I've ever had. I usually catch them either as adults, or I catch them young and release them at some point first. My Chinese ooth still hasn't hatched, I'm hoping for better luck with those nymphs.
~Wolfie
