Orchid mantis won’t eat & shaking?

[Mantidkid]

Okay so i recently bought an orchid mantis and she arrived perfectly healthy she’s around l6/l7. She’s currently living in a 20x20x30 exo terra and i keep the temperature around 25° and around 70% humidity. Since yesterday i’ve noticed that she’s completely ignoring moving food right in front of her and she keeps running around her enclosure with her abdomen wiggling everywhere and her arms shaking. She might be about to molt but i’m not sure. Anyone know what might be happening?

 

[Synapze]

When did she last molt? If you have any feeders in with her now, you should remove them for a couple of days and observe.

 

[Mantidkid]

When did she last molt? If you have any feeders in with her now, you should remove them for a couple of days and observe.

she hasn’t since i had her so i’m not sure but right now there’s a few fruit flies in there with her but they’ve all settled somewhere and i can’t find them so they shouldn’t disturb her, i got her on wednesday and she hasn’t eaten since because she’s just ignoring prey go right in front of her, i guess all i can do is keep her conditions right and wait a few days and see if she molts 

 

[Synapze]

she hasn’t since i had her so i’m not sure but right now there’s a few fruit flies in there with her

I'm not familiar with orchids, but are fruitflies the appropriate size for an L6/L7?

 

[Viking]

It depends if it is male or female. Males are rather small. I would think that house flies would be the right size. Normal movement does look shaky they like are blown by wind. It sounds like it is pre-molt.

 

[Mantidkid]

I'm not familiar with orchids, but are fruitflies the appropriate size for an L6/L7?

they might be too small but i feel like she’d run away from wax worms which are the only other thing i have right now but maybe when it stops raining i’ll go outside and find something larger to give her and see if she takes it 

 

[Mantidkid]

It depends if it is male or female. Males are rather small. I would think that house flies would be the right size. Normal movement does look shaky they like are blown by wind. It sounds like it is pre-molt.

yeah it’s just normally from past experience they normally stay quite still when preparing for a molt but she’s just aimlessly running around her enclosure with her abdomen wiggling wildly it doesn’t look like she’s pretending to be blown by the wind but i guess i just have to wait and see

 

[Synapze]

i feel like she’d run away from wax worms which are the only other thing i have right now

I'd suggest cutting one into smaller pieces and handing her the gut end. I wouldn't worry too much yet, but make sure she has access to water droplets since mantids get a majority of their water from prey. 

It might be overkill, but I'd try to get all the fruitflies out of her enclosure. She may start molting and sometimes even a small disturbance can cause problems.

 

[Jaywo]

Every Orchid I have had has never passed up a Blue Bottle Fly. If you can get some she might eat that. If not, Likely molting.

 

[hysteresis]

When I started with orchids, I didnt have flies. It was Canadian winter. LoL. 

Having said that, I raised them with waxworms and BSF larvae (which I was able to source locally) . Eventually the BSFL eclosed and I saw just how much they love flies.

Again having said that, my orchids NEVER turned down BSFL or waxworm hand fed. Even just placing the waxworm or BSFL down was enough for them to grab it. Butbthat was always swrved on the lid, lid upside down. 

Now they eat BBF almost exclusively. They take meal worm or half a superworm by hand 100pct too though. 

 

[MantisGirl13]

Try if you can get her to have some honey. If she takes that, try some prey, like a bbf. It does sound like she might be molting soon, so don't disturb her too much. She won't even notice the fruit flies, they are too tiny for an L6/7 female orchid.

- MantisGirl13