Speckled nymph

[jfmantis]

I have a Stagmomantis californica nymph. It was bright green, active, and seemingly fine in the morning. Then I left for a couple of hours and when I came back it had molted. The odd thing is, it is now covered in little black dots and streaks. Its behavior looks normal. Could it be an infection of some sort? If it is an infection, is there anything I can do to get rid of it. ('It' being the infection of course)

 

[OGIGA]

How old is your nymph? I had one that started having colors similar to yours and and he turned out fine. After two more molts, it turned out that his whole body became brown.

 

[jfmantis]

It molted into L4. I hope he will just turn brown.

 

[Asa]

If it is streaks he is probably fine.

 

[OGIGA]

It molted into L4. I hope he will just turn brown.

That sounds about right. If it's a he, he has 3 more molts until adulthood.

 

[Hypoponera]

Some species can change colors when they molt. Not sure if S. californica is one of them. I have several S.limbata that I hatched out of the same ooth. Some were bright green, some are brown camo colored and a single nymph is green on the underside and brown camo on the upper surface. I am waiting to see if any of them changes.

 

[Rick]

More than likely it is fine. Don't be one of the worry wort people.

 

[OGIGA]

Here's how mine changed. Sorry I didn't get good pictures of his back when he was still young.

 

[Asa]

He's turning brown. Nothing to worry about.

 

[jfmantis]

Actually, I don't know if it is male or female (do males and females have different amounts of molts?).

I don't know if it is turning brown, but it seems fine for a couple of reasons:

1) The behavior seems normal. It was very active, and ate five fruitflies.

2) The dots are actually in a pattern. The marks on it's legs are on the same place on each leg, and the markings down it's back are symmetrical.

3) I have no idea if this has any relevance, but it's mother was brown.

Also, it doesn't much look like your two pictures here Ogiga, it looks more like what you called your 'first L5' in your mantis mini-gallery.

Thanks for all the help, it was very reassuring.

 

[OGIGA]

Males molt 6 times and females molt 7 times. You should make plans to get bigger food for them because they'll have trouble getting things too small soon.

If it looks like the following picture, then that just means you're going to have a more colorful mantis. This one got a lot more red than her siblings as an adult and she turned out to be female.

 

[jfmantis]

You guys were right! It did turn brown. After a couple of days, the black markings on it's back started to slowly dissapear. Ten days later, it was no longer green with dark black dots, but light brown, with light black dots only on its arms and legs.

Then, it molted! Now it is completely brown with very light, hardly noticable, dots still just on the arms and legs.

I am so glad that it was not infected or anything bad like that.

 

[Asa]

Infections kind of protrude from the mantids body.

 

[Kriss]

I find that natural markings on a praying mantid that aren't sign of infection are usually symetrical.

So if you sliced the mantid from head to abdomen both halfs would have the same markings in the same places.

It is difficult to tell from Ogigas pic but I think you can just make out the symetrical markings on some of the legs as an example.

 

[OGIGA]

Hmm, I don't think I've experienced dark spots indicating disease yet. Perhaps markings are more often a sign of color change rather than disease.

 

[Kriss]

Fair enough.

I keep only CB stock and have never experienced a diseases in my mantids. I should not have put that in my post, only added as I thought disease would also produce markings on the mantids exo-skeleton in a similar way infections do. Have edited post.