Orchid L4 died.

[xenuwantsyou]

Well, this time it wasn't moulting. I noticed a few days ago that this one had sort of a dark color forming in the anterior of her thorax. I figured it was just color shifting as this is the first time I've raised this species. Well, yesterday I checked on her and she seemed fine, but today, the dark color had moved towards the posterior of the thorax, and she was sitting at the bottom of the tank twitching and arching her abdomen. She seemed entirely unresponsive and unwell so I did the hard thing and put her in the freezer.

P.S. I know sometmes they die for unknown reasons but I was wondering if anyone had something similar happen. Thanks.

 

[wuwu]

this seems to be pretty common, it's a fungal infection.

 

[xenuwantsyou]

Thanks, I've heard that fungal infections were common but I didn't know what to look for. Is there any way to prevent it in the future or stop it once a mantid has it?

 

[wuwu]

i believe the cause is bad ventilation, but i'm not certain. unfortunately, there's no way to cure them once they get it.

 

[Rick]

i believe the cause is bad ventilation, but i'm not certain. unfortunately, there's no way to cure them once they get it.

I don't know about that though. I keep a lot of mantids in deli cups with the matching lids. Not what I would consider good ventilation and I've had this happen to mantids in all types of conditions.

 

[xenuwantsyou]

@!*% :x I'm pretty sure my last one has it. She seems fine now, but there's a "shadow" around her wing pads.

Do they ever recover once they get it or would it be better to end it now.

Edit:

I did a little research. I gues it's something called an Entomopathogenic fungus. Basically these guys thrive in moisture. Now I know H. Coronatus need moisture to moult, but my remaining nymph just shed about 3 days ago, so I removed the substrate from her jar and moved her to an isolated dry area. I doubt it will do much since dry conditions only prevent the fungus from succeeding in sporulation rather than germination. Oh well, sometimes we have to learn the hard way.

 

[OGIGA]

I think out of everybody here, my mantises have the worst ventilation. Most of the ones who died already died during L1, and that's probably mostly just because they were L1. Only of few of them died after dark spots became visible. Right now, they're at L3 and I moved about half of them into better venilated containers.

 

[patdbunny]

Hey is this what happened to Yen Saw's mantis in this thread:

http://www.mantidforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5049

Fungal? Bacterial? Two different things? How to tell the diff?

Roz.

 

[Rory]

I think fungus will grow from the corpse, bacteria will break it down.

Bacteria split to reproduce, fungi release spores, thats how you can tell the diff aswell