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Nice pics. Going back to the music thing, Classical music or Birdsong speeds up germination time in seeds by a registrable percentage, dont quote me, something small like 0.5 or 0.05 % which is like..... 5 minutes lol, even so, Ive got classic FM permanetly playing in the Mantis room. Not sure how theyd groove to the Hardstep Jungle Techno tho...    Junglist!!!  :gun_bandana:

 
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Unfortunately our idolo had its first molt with us Friday and fell during his molt trying to get his last leg out. We caught him before it was too late but he still ended up with problems. Now his raptorials are permanently hanging straight towards the ground and he cannot bend them to catch prey. We are hand feeding him fruit flies and he is happily eating them, but I'm not convinced he will make it to his next molt. 

 
Thanks! We are going to try to keep him as warm as we can and hand feed him as much as he will take to hopefully speed up his next molt. He took 5 hydei yesterday and another 5 today. Looks like I have evening plans for the next 3 weeks. ?

 
I am glad he is eating! Can we see a pic of him?

- MantisGirl13
Sure, here is a photo from Saturday. Unfortunately, we woke up this morning and he had passed away. I am not sure what the cause was since he was fed and humidity and temperature were within the recommended range. Possibly the stress of being handled for feeding? We only had him for about a week, but we enjoyed watching him. I;m sure our inexperience didn't do him any favors, but we gave it our best shot. Here he is after the mismolt enjoying a fly. It might just be the way this type is, but he always seemed clumsy, even before the mismolt. We often found him trying to climb the one side of the enclosure with smooth acrylic (the other three sides and top had mesh and sticks), resulting in him falling to the substrate and having to climb back up. He would tap his feet multiple times before taking a step as well.

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On a more positive note, we took the time this weekend to build another enclosure so the ghosts could all match and get out of the deli containers. Later this week our order of plants and (more) isopods comes, then we will be housing the peacock and giant rainforest in matching bioactive vivariums.

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Thanks! We are going to try to keep him as warm as we can and hand feed him as much as he will take to hopefully speed up his next molt. He took 5 hydei yesterday and another 5 today. Looks like I have evening plans for the next 3 weeks. ?
Unfortunately the Idolos has a super hard time gripping things even when they are all fully functional. Heavily barked branches help. I went far enough to wrap paper towels around some branches. Not the most agile of species.

 
Unfortunately the Idolos has a super hard time gripping things even when they are all fully functional. Heavily barked branches help. I went far enough to wrap paper towels around some branches. Not the most agile of species.
Thanks. We glued barked sticks to the lid closely spaced together to give him the best shot at gripping but I believe he was struggling too much with his raptorials getting caught up in his other legs. It is very strange to me how one of the largest and most aggressive looking species is also the most fragile and clumsy. We don't intend to try any more advanced species until we have some more experience under our belt.

The giant rainforest and ghosts are so fun to watch since they are more active. The ghosts seem to enjoy being handled; they raise their arms up to grab for our hands whenever we take the lid off. They run hand-over-hand and we can even get them to reliably jump from one hand to the other. The giant rainforest doesn't like being handled as well, but is a veracious hunter. If he catches a glimpse of a fly he will sprint across the cage to grab it.

We are beginning to worry about the peacock mantis though. He has not eaten since we got him 9 days ago. His abdomen looks full and round. We have tried allowing him to hunt blue-bottles and hydei, but he leaves them alone completely. We tried hand feeding hydei, blue bottles, and dubias, he shows no interest in that either. The only thing we have been able to get him to take is diluted honey. He is due to molt any day now (hasn't molted since at least 9/30/18 when the breeder shipped) so I figure that is the problem, but 9 days seems like a long time without food.

 
Its a real shame. The way to look at it maybe is that any creature, even the bait, has given their life to provide a greater insight into what we are dealing with here  :eek:

 
Sorry you lost your idolo.... :(

I hope the peacock will molt soon and then eat again. 9 days whitout eating is very long.

Your ghosts will be having cool homes if I see their new enclosures..

 
I hope that your peacock either molts or eats soon!

- MantisGirl13
We were getting pretty worried so we tried the trick of cutting a meal worm and putting it to his mouth. He took it and is happily eating. I hope he is not picky like this all the time. We figured that giving him plenty of time to hunt and even be hand fed would work, but I guess he needed to taste it. This means he won't be molting for a little while I guess. 

 
? yay! I am glad he is eating. You never know, some species molt right after eating, others don't. 

I hope he isn't such a picky eater anymore!

- MantisGirl13

 

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