Ooth never hatched, but I got some cross section pictures

[JP77]

I mated a pair of Rhombodera valida, and later the female laid an ooth. Two months came and went so I decided to take a peak inside to see if anything was developed. The eggs were black and undeveloped, so I assumed the eggs were never fertile and I took the opportunity to cut it open and take some pictures.

 

[Mantis Man13]

You should have mated the female more than once I guess.

 

[JP77]

You should have mated the female more than once I guess.

She laid soon after mating, but died of an infection soon after that sadly

 

[Crazy4mantis]

sad, it was a very nice looking ooth. but interesting to see how the eggs are stacked up inside.

 

[PlayingMantis]

My Rhombodera's first ooth looked exactly like that when I cut it open. All black and dead. She was mated alright, and I'm pretty sure I took good care of the ooth. Her second ooth, which I assumed was a dud too, happened to hatch. Strange, isn't it...

 

[Aryia]

Infertile eggs will be clear with light yellow liquid inside and tend to dry up instead of turn black. If there were developing nymphs instead, they tend to turn black after they pass away. I opened one of my R. stalli oothecas that hatched smaller than I was expecting and found a lot of blackened nymphs too. It's possible that their oothecas need a care requirement that we aren't matching.

 

[JP77]

It's possible that the humidity wasn't right. My room tends to be on the dry side since I have a few species that prefer it dry and temperature's usually at 86 - 88 F. For the high humidity species and ooths, I mist them well twice a day. I read that rhombodera ooths should be at about 80%, but not if that needed to be a constant humidity or if the ooth needed to be wet, as if it rained. I'm still very new to the hobby, so it's more than likely I did something wrong along the way