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cdsnuts

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My favorite female, the biggest coolest looking one that I have, suffered a tragic molt last night. I went out to find her on the bottom of the enclosure, crumpled and dead looking. It was apparent she got stuck in her old skin while molting and ended up on the bottom of the cage.

Her antennae were stuck in the old skin and she was twisted down and bent at her midsection because she get free. I clipped the skin apart and got her out, but I'm assuming she had been in that position all night because she cannot straighten herself out now.

If you look closely you can see that the arm that was still in the skin is completely underdeveloped (left arm)

Is there any hope for her?

poormantis.JPG

poormantis2.JPG

 
I want to mention that humidity isn't an issue here. It's been in the 90's and over into the 100's with almost 90 percent humidity most days. I still mist the cage even with the weather outside.

 
Sorry, she looks like a goner to me. If she's able to hang by herself you might be able to keep her alive by hand feeding, but she doesn't look good. Did her enclosure have enough stuff for her to get a good grip on before molting?

 
Paradoxica said:
Sorry, she looks like a goner to me. If she's able to hang by herself you might be able to keep her alive by hand feeding, but she doesn't look good. Did her enclosure have enough stuff for her to get a good grip on before molting?
Click to expand...
She can hang by herself and move around a bit, but I don't see her being able to catch anything right now. I was hoping that she'd be able to straighten herself out now that her head is free of her forearm. I think she may have "set" that way though, seeing as she was in that position for the whole night.

And yes, I have them in a netted butterfly hatching enclosure so the entire thing is very suitable for hanging off of.

 
The legs do not look too bad. Maybe leave her in peace one or two days and then try handfeeding her. She might not be able to use her raptorial arms, so you have to kind of force her to eat. Try first to hold a dead prey animal in front of her mouth, if you are lucky she starts eating, if not, she rejects and and tries to kick the food away. In that latter case you need to hold her thorax and give her some support, then try to put the prey again in front of her. As she will try to get rid of your grip, she bites anything she can reach and by doing this she might eat the prey. It's a quite rough procedure and not very natural, but if you can get her to the next moult, she might recover from her bad shape. As I said the legs do not seem to be damaged too much for holding her during a moult. Very important though is some peace time now for her, try not to handle her in the next 1-2 days.

Good luck and hopefully she recovers.

Cheers

Stefan

 
I've seen worse survive

wait a day and then really hydrate her well

she may not eat for a few days

put her on paper toweling or something similar that's really grippable

spritz her a few times a day

after a few days start offering food again, u may need to use banana or honey to jump start her appetite again and then handfeed her insects

 
Can she grip with the back legs at all? I am hand feeding a deadleaf atm. I will post a pic.The forelegs are all bent up. Sometimes she can hold the food in her mandibles. I am counting the days, and looking at her color to see when the molt is near. Then I will make sure she is in a good spot with the hind legs securely attatched to the surface. Make sure she drinks, and offer honey everyday. I always mush the fly or cut the head off the butterworm before I offer it to her. so far so good.....Good luck with your girl, and I will keep trying with mine. Here is the pic....

 
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All her legs are 100% operational. Her right raptorial arm works at about 50% but the left one is completely dead.

so I should mist her directly? A couple times a day?

I'll wait a few days to see if she takes some food by hand. I really hope I can get her to the next molt. I'm curious as to why this happened in the first place?

Any ideas?

 
Ranitomeya said:
It looks to me like the left raptorial did not successfully come out of its old exoskeleton and was bent.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what happened. Her antenna where also stuck in the left arm skin which is why she was bent that way. I thought she was dead when I saw here this morning.

 
cdsnuts said:
All her legs are 100% operational. Her right raptorial arm works at about 50% but the left one is completely dead.

so I should mist her directly? A couple times a day?

I'll wait a few days to see if she takes some food by hand. I really hope I can get her to the next molt. I'm curious as to why this happened in the first place?

Any ideas?
Click to expand...
It happened to my deadleaf because she molted down to far in her container and the forelegs were compromised. I mist around the mantis, not directly on it. Offer water at the end of a dropper or spoon or QTip. My mantids drink a lot of water. I mist once or twice a day depending on the humidity in the container.

 
agent A said:
I've seen worse survive

wait a day and then really hydrate her well

she may not eat for a few days

put her on paper toweling or something similar that's really grippable

spritz her a few times a day

after a few days start offering food again, u may need to use banana or honey to jump start her appetite again and then handfeed her insects
Click to expand...
She has no problem hanging on the side of the enclosure by herself...

 
cdsnuts said:
That's exactly what happened. Her antenna where also stuck in the left arm skin which is why she was bent that way. I thought she was dead when I saw here this morning.
Click to expand...
Yes, I had to pull some of the exoskeleton off of my deadleaf also.... hopefully your girl will make it to next molt :)

 
Sticky said:
These things happen. Dont give up on her.
Click to expand...
I want to know why they happen so I can prevent them happening again if at all possible. I was really bummed this morning to find her like that. So was my girlfriend and she doesn't really like them. She was bummed for me....

I have all of them in these butterfly enclosures shown below.

Should I add more to the cages? I mean when I started out I had sticks and things going across but they always just stayed on the sides......always.

I don't even have any substrate on the bottom.

enclosure.JPG

 
Would it be possible for her to get to the next molt with just fruit and honey alone?

 
I'm sorry that happened to her. Those are the exact cages I use and I rarely have mismolt problems. However, my favorite mantid had a bad molt last year and ended up looking like that. She was in a ten-gallon aquarium when it happened. She, sadly, did not survive. I hope yours does better. You can try holding insects up to her mouth with tweezers to see if she can eat. :)

 

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