Ooth Arrived - partly hatched!!

[jacksun]

I ordered some Ephestiasula pictipes Ooths from Daniel D 12 days ago. They arrived today (sorry Katnapper, from Germany to me faster than from Illinois) and when I opened the extremely well packaged ooths I was attacked by 4 newly hatched and rather annoyed nymphs.

They told me they were really PO'd about some 3 hour delay on the tarmac and not being allowed to disembark or get anything to drink.

I poured them each a stiff one of distilled water, threw in a couple girl flies and they are extremely happy now. They will never ever fly Air Canada again.

Thanks to Daniel's excellent packing job, zero fatalities experienced when the worst case scenario occurred during shipping.

 

[jameslongo]

Sending an ooth so close to hatching time is little poor form to me. Thankfully nothing happened to any of them. The packaging, as you said, just may have saved their lives. But you have to take into account the delays that may occur during postage. It's like posting a mantis that's about to moult. Just too risky

 

[Katnapper]

Glad the little boogers made it safely to you, Wayne!

Yes, it figures... of all of the out of country parcels I've now sent, the only one that wasn't overseas, but to an adjoining country, took the longest.

 

[Emile.Wilson]

air canada the worst canadian flight choice!

 

[PhilinYuma]

Sending an ooth so close to hatching time is little poor form to me. Thankfully nothing happened to any of them. The packaging, as you said, just may have saved their lives. But you have to take into account the delays that may occur during postage. It's like posting a mantis that's about to moult. Just too risky

Inevitably, though James, both things do happen even with experienced breeders and shippers. I have never had an ooth hatch in transit, but then I have never had one in transit that long -- except for one that I sent to Canada! -- but molts in transit are not uncommon.

 

[Rick]

Why are you using distilled water? It has had everything removed including trace minerals that could be beneficial. Same reason I don't use it for any of my animals. Go with drinking water.

 

[Rick]

Sending an ooth so close to hatching time is little poor form to me. Thankfully nothing happened to any of them. The packaging, as you said, just may have saved their lives. But you have to take into account the delays that may occur during postage. It's like posting a mantis that's about to moult. Just too risky

It happens to most of use at one time or another. Nobody knows exactly when an ooth will hatch. It just really isn't practical to not ever have this happen.

 

[jacksun]

Why are you using distilled water? It has had everything removed including trace minerals that could be beneficial. Same reason I don't use it for any of my animals. Go with drinking water.

Rick, we have chlorine and flouride added to our drinking water by the city, so I use distilled water for all my insects, and bottled spring water for the dog

 

[Christian]

I also use destilled water. It's to avoid scale deposits on the terrarium walls. When destilled water touches any surface, ions get dissolved and it isn't destilled anymore. It's most close to rain water which is the natural water source for mantids.

 

[hibiscusmile]

OH! I agree Christian, especially when in my water u can smell the clorine as soon as the tap is turned on, I dont drink it either.

 

[Kruszakus]

Totally agree with Christian.

Even people drink distilled water - it's not lethal or something.

 

[Rick]

I know it is not harmful. The scale is a good reason but when keeping reptiles it is advisable not to use it due to the trace minerals being removed. I'm not gonna pay for water that I can get right from the tap. I drink it so can they. I just add a litthe reptisafe to remove the chlorine. Anyways, sorry to get off topic.