new babies, and new friends

[Mirk]

So I was waiting for a camera to start here and well got to anxious with the surprise i found this morning. A couple weeks ago my roommate picked up about 40 oothes from a garden supplier off ebay(20 chinese, 10 carolina and 10 euro). well the first of the chinese hatched this morning, got about 50 nymphs. after a couple hours i threw a some fruit flies in and to my surprise most where already in the mood to hunt and started fillin their little bellies.

Also something about my roommate he never had seen a mantis up close until about 3 years ago when i last raised them(cant sustain themselves where we live), and with my regained love for these guys he is quickly becoming a big fan. Well i have kinda been holding off ordering anything yet due some financial issues with a former employer. Learning the hard way how bad taking "under the table" pay jobs can be, even if it only for a couple months.

Anyways the roommate ordered me 2 idolos and 2 h. multispinas as some sorta surprise with the fruit fly cultures and supplies he ordered for the oothes. they arived last friday and over the first night we lost the L4 male idolo, he was alive still when i found him in the morning just very weak and quickly deteriorated from there :-(. Still quite the mystery as the temps never dropped below 75 and when i found him temps was right about 90. humidity was at 85% when i went to bed and 45% in the morning when i found him. He was very active upon arrival, especially in comparo to the female. he ate 4 large flies that night. I couldn't see any defects on his body except for an unfinished bowl movement. was very strange.

Bright side is that since then, everyone else seems to be doin great. One of the multispina molted to L5 2 days ago

whenever i get a decent camera i will post up some pics

 

[CoolMantid]

My violin randomly and suddenly died today along with my h. Majusucla male. I just found them dead in their cage????

Mantids seem to die for no reason. So I do not think it was your fault for your idolo death

 

[Mirk]

I am super sorry to hear about your losses...

i knew idolos are a pain and shouldn't be the starter species. just cant help but think this was someones way of reminding me

I spose i should just accept that there prolly wasn't much i could do. I guess you don't notice, or at least care to notice, those random deaths when you have tons of the little guys. I wonder if maybe it is a defect of home cultured mantids(maybe inbreeding, or lack of contact to disease and bacteria making for weak immunity response). I cant help wonder these things because i never had this issue with chinese b4 with exception of L1 or L2 but they where kept communally and i just kinda figure its expected at those younger ages. I just don't remember having a solitary mantis ever just die so rapidly without signs. but also i have no real first hand experience with these exotics so ya i guess i will leave it at that.

 

[Krissim Klaw]

Not sure if I'm reading the timeline correctly but if a mantis dies within 24hours of arrival I tend to suspect shipping issues over anything else. Good husbandry and packaging skills can prevent most shipping deaths, but some mantises stress more than others. Depending on who you ordered from they might be willing to ship a replacement if they think the death fell in their court in the whole transaction.

 

[agent A]

my multispina r becoming adults now!! yay!!