Tenodera Sinensis

[Slinkytreekreeper]

Time for a few more pics.

L3 male, adventurous and clumsy as anything, so much character.

 

[Slinkytreekreeper]

You can see his dodgy appendage in these, it molted out thankfully. Didn't slow him down for long.

and a butt shot

 

[Slinkytreekreeper]

A pair of 2 frame stacks

 

[dgerndt]

I see that they're turning green! So pretty! These are what mine look like right now.

 

[Slinkytreekreeper]

Hey debs, did you get some more? I hope so, you can tell you missed em. Lots of photos please

I have a huge backlog of pics as I am totally trigger happy at the moment, I didn't get any pics of L4 as they didn't really change, just got a lot bigger and unfortunately this little guy is no longer. These are at L5 with my new lens a day or so before he started to turn deep brown. You can see how rich the colours are minutes after a molt in his face on the first one and the yellow and red patch under his neck on a couple of the other like PatrickFaser posted the other day.

His butt was squished in between the container lid he was sitting on and his container by a friend taking pics. He was munching on a cricket when the pot was knocked, mantis jumped onto the photographer (no names mentioned - you know who you are) causing a very manly man to squeal like a girl and lunge forward. The rest wasn't pretty, I put him in the freezer an hour later when his body was wafer thin and he couldn't stand. RIP little guy.

 

[Slinkytreekreeper]

A few stacks, slowly getting a bit more confident with these, even if I do keep missing some data in my stacks. Frustratingly addictive though.

4 frames

6 frames

2 frames for these two

 

[dgerndt]

These are great photos! I love how you take pictures of other body parts. I really enjoy being able to see other parts of a mantis up close. My eyes alone just aren't good enough to see the detail you're able to reveal.

I'm sorry to hear about that tragic accident. I lost a sub-adult Chinese male to a vicious triple cat attack. I still miss the little guy...

But, yes, I did get some more nymphs! I got four L4 nymphs in the mail last week. Sadly, one mismolted the morning after I got them. The poor little guy didn't have a chance, as he had gotten stuck and I found him too late. I ended up feeding him to a hungry Ghost. I felt bad, but it's the circle of life, I guess. The good news is that one had a perfect molt last night, and the rest seem very healthy. I'll make a new topic and post some pictures, just for you!

 

[Slinkytreekreeper]

I couldn't bear to see him get munched up and perhaps I can still use him as a subject.

The guy above with the curled front leg (I really need to learn some terminology/taxonomy) had a bad molt prior to that one and had both his back legs stuck inside his exhuvia, dragging it about

I pinned him down and soaked the area with a cotton bud and 20mins later he finally pulled one leg out of it. The other didn't come out at all so I cut it off way below his leg so he could move about. He never managed to nibble it all away but fed ok and never looked distressed. I don't know if they are frail compared to other species or if I was just getting the correct humidity but lots of people seem to have problems with Tenodera Nymphs early on. Hard to believe when they get bigger, I don't even need the macro lens to see his details now his L6 and tiny budwings, almost prehistoric in size compared to my creos.

 

[dgerndt]

The only reason I was able to feed my mismolted mantis to my Ghost was because I hadn't had time to bond with him yet. Now if any of my other mantids were to have a mismolt or some sort of accident, I couldn't feed them to another. I love my little sweeties just too much.

There have been a few mismolts with my mantids, but I'm almost always able to help them out. I usually hold onto the old skin of a back leg, spray the mantis with a super fine mist, and let the mantis walk out of the skin on my hand. One or two of the back legs becomes crippled most of the time, but at least I've still got my mantis.

 

[dgerndt]

I finally made a thread with pictures of my new nymphs. Here's the link. My camera isn't nearly as good as yours, and my photo-taking skills are lacking a little bit, so don't have high hopes for great pictures.