Teamonger
Well-known member
Figured I might as well poll the community to see if anyone has any idea what's going on with a few of my mantises.
So I currently have roughly 40 or so L6-L7 Chinese mantises. As you do I picked out 6 of them for myself and they got nicer and bigger cages. However two of said six have upped and mysteriously died on me to my sadness. Both became lethargic seeming barely able to hold themselves up or hang properly. Their back most legs seemed to be no longer working leaving them both hanging strangely with their abdomen like folded in half and the legs just hanging limply. Over the next few days they worsened until the inevitable happened.
No attempts to offer food or water resulted in anything other then feeble flailing. The only thing that was different between these two and the 30+ others is that they were in two identical beta tanks that were getting a bit small for their size but not unreasonably so. The cages are bigger then the spartan deli cups the rest are still thriving in. Both however had live moss in them and while some of the bigger enclosures also have this same moss in them I wonder if it was a combination of the live moss along with the smaller less ventilated cages that perhaps gave them some sort of infection?
Those two cages have been quarantined and the second the second mantis started showing signs (I had thought the first was a bad feeder so did not relocate the him
) I moved him to a larger dryer cage but no change.
Has anyone else experienced this? I would love to try to figure out what I did wrong so as to never do it again.
So I currently have roughly 40 or so L6-L7 Chinese mantises. As you do I picked out 6 of them for myself and they got nicer and bigger cages. However two of said six have upped and mysteriously died on me to my sadness. Both became lethargic seeming barely able to hold themselves up or hang properly. Their back most legs seemed to be no longer working leaving them both hanging strangely with their abdomen like folded in half and the legs just hanging limply. Over the next few days they worsened until the inevitable happened.
No attempts to offer food or water resulted in anything other then feeble flailing. The only thing that was different between these two and the 30+ others is that they were in two identical beta tanks that were getting a bit small for their size but not unreasonably so. The cages are bigger then the spartan deli cups the rest are still thriving in. Both however had live moss in them and while some of the bigger enclosures also have this same moss in them I wonder if it was a combination of the live moss along with the smaller less ventilated cages that perhaps gave them some sort of infection?
Those two cages have been quarantined and the second the second mantis started showing signs (I had thought the first was a bad feeder so did not relocate the him
) I moved him to a larger dryer cage but no change.Has anyone else experienced this? I would love to try to figure out what I did wrong so as to never do it again.
