Playin Possum

[Malakyoma]

Just had one of my taumantis babies play dead. He did the inwardly curled legs style. I picked up his cup and he started freaking out, jumping around and running up the walls and such. I was worried he was going to hurt himself. Then suddenly he stopped, when I looked inside the cup he was on the floor on his back with his legs curled in. So I removed his last exuviae, gave the enclosure a light mist, dropped in a tiny mealworm and put the top back on and watched. In about half a minute he was up eating.

 

[Kat33]

When my dead leaf first did it I had no idea that this was a normal behaviour- I thought he was actually dead, but I left his tank to clean out later. I was so happy the next morning when I found the curled up ball had turned back into my beautiful mantis!

 

[Danny.]

My Ghostie at L4 would play dead. Had a Creo roll up into a ball and play dead.

Here's a pic of my female Acanthops sp. playing dead.