MantidLord
Well-known member
Can someone please tell me what is up with these guys? I've had too many deaths attributed to unknown causes and it's ruined my plans for breeding them. It seems like they're prone to some unknown illness that no amount of cleaning jars, substrate, structures, humidity, temperatures,, whatever, can cure.
It first started when I got a few free ones from ismart. At first, everything was going fine and they were growing. I lost maybe two to mismolts because they somehow fell during molting. So I decided to buy some more from yen (btw I'm not implicating ismart or yen for selling me a bad batch or anything like that, they were perfect when and for the longest after I got them) just in case something happened to the original ones I had from ismart. Good thing I did.
When I left for California for the summer, I had to ship all my mantids and unfortunately, I wasn't able to pack them so I instructed my roommate to pack them. He tried the best he could, and when the package arrived, my lone female from Ismart was doing good and so were the nymphs I got from yen. Soon after however, the female started acting sluggish and not grasping on to her sticks. She had lost (or chewed off) a leg prior to shipping and it seemed as if it had gotten infected. Her condition got worse and she started spending most of her time at the bottom of the cage and only grasping things with her two front legs in a death clutch. I even opened the jar one day to see her chewing on one of the sticks. Needless to say, she died. I chalked it up to her being stressed out from the travels and that causing some sort of infection to take place. At least I still had the younger ones from yen.
Wrong. Through a series of bizarre happenings and deaths that I don't even remember, I ended up with three males and one female. Now, one male had eaten a cricket the day before, (I hand fed it to him because it was too big to catch) and seemed to be doing fine. However the next day I looked in his jar, and he was on the ground dark brown and decrepit. Wasn't the crickets, they had been eating them their whole lives and I kept the crickets clean. Okay, still two males and one female.
The other male ended up dying in much the same way the female did a while ago. He appeared to be getting ready to molt (I wrote a thread about this when it happened) and he was constantly, and I mean constantly throwing the defense posture at anything that moved. As the day wore on, he lost the ability to climb and all he could do was throw the defense posture and cling on with his claws. He two eventually died.
Okay, down to one male and one female. I'm thinking "I can do this, I'm the MantidLord". The male molts to an adult successfully, doesn't die from that random "24 hour death after the final molt syndrome" that some mantids die from so everything was looking up, just have to raise the female. That proves to be freaking impossible. I fed her the day before yesterday and she was fine, she grabbed her prey and ate it, no problem. Let me backtrack, she had been eating fine all her life and maybe a week ago I noticed brown splotches on the side of her jar. I wasn't sure if it was from her (most likely) or crickets so I changed jars, put her in a fresh container with new and clean sticks for her. So everything is going smoothly, she's eating but not too much. Then today, I go to feed her and I see she's on the bottom of her container. But she seems find. I take her out, offer her the cricket, she doesn't want it. I see that her wing buds are kind of swollen so I toy with the idea that she's beginning her pre-molt fast and seeing that she's not really skinny, I put her back in her cage and leave her alone. Then a few (probably like 10 after typing all of this) minutes ago, I check up on her, she's on the ground again. I take her out the cage and she's doing the EXACT SAME THING the previous mantids did. Hanging on with only her claws and the rest of her body and legs dangling underneath her, like she's trying to pull herself up with just her arms. I put her on my floor for further inspection and she clutches the carpet and I had to struggle to get her off the floor. I gave her water, honey, changed jars again, and put paper towel at the top of her container and placed her on it to help her grip. But realistically it's not her grip, it's her. Right now she's hanging from the paper towel by her arms and two of her legs, but mainly her arms in a very awkward position with her head face down in the paper towel.
I'm not hopeful that she'll live. And this has been a very trying, time consuming and financial waste to try and breed such a cool species only to fail miserably when this is supposed to be taken care of like "typical" mantids. What I really want is some sort of answer as to what is wrong with them. Is it something I'm doing? Again, I've experiment with humidity and temperature, the food they eat is "clean" as are their containers. They just seem to deteriorate for no reason and it's very frustrating to see them die in front of my eyes with there be nothing I can do, especially because this is my only female and my male is waiting for her to molt to adulthood.
She's dead. I took her out and put her near my laptop to give her some heat. And she just laid there next to it. About 10 minutes later I check on her and she's gone. Smh, this sucks.
It first started when I got a few free ones from ismart. At first, everything was going fine and they were growing. I lost maybe two to mismolts because they somehow fell during molting. So I decided to buy some more from yen (btw I'm not implicating ismart or yen for selling me a bad batch or anything like that, they were perfect when and for the longest after I got them) just in case something happened to the original ones I had from ismart. Good thing I did.
When I left for California for the summer, I had to ship all my mantids and unfortunately, I wasn't able to pack them so I instructed my roommate to pack them. He tried the best he could, and when the package arrived, my lone female from Ismart was doing good and so were the nymphs I got from yen. Soon after however, the female started acting sluggish and not grasping on to her sticks. She had lost (or chewed off) a leg prior to shipping and it seemed as if it had gotten infected. Her condition got worse and she started spending most of her time at the bottom of the cage and only grasping things with her two front legs in a death clutch. I even opened the jar one day to see her chewing on one of the sticks. Needless to say, she died. I chalked it up to her being stressed out from the travels and that causing some sort of infection to take place. At least I still had the younger ones from yen.
Wrong. Through a series of bizarre happenings and deaths that I don't even remember, I ended up with three males and one female. Now, one male had eaten a cricket the day before, (I hand fed it to him because it was too big to catch) and seemed to be doing fine. However the next day I looked in his jar, and he was on the ground dark brown and decrepit. Wasn't the crickets, they had been eating them their whole lives and I kept the crickets clean. Okay, still two males and one female.
The other male ended up dying in much the same way the female did a while ago. He appeared to be getting ready to molt (I wrote a thread about this when it happened) and he was constantly, and I mean constantly throwing the defense posture at anything that moved. As the day wore on, he lost the ability to climb and all he could do was throw the defense posture and cling on with his claws. He two eventually died.
Okay, down to one male and one female. I'm thinking "I can do this, I'm the MantidLord". The male molts to an adult successfully, doesn't die from that random "24 hour death after the final molt syndrome" that some mantids die from so everything was looking up, just have to raise the female. That proves to be freaking impossible. I fed her the day before yesterday and she was fine, she grabbed her prey and ate it, no problem. Let me backtrack, she had been eating fine all her life and maybe a week ago I noticed brown splotches on the side of her jar. I wasn't sure if it was from her (most likely) or crickets so I changed jars, put her in a fresh container with new and clean sticks for her. So everything is going smoothly, she's eating but not too much. Then today, I go to feed her and I see she's on the bottom of her container. But she seems find. I take her out, offer her the cricket, she doesn't want it. I see that her wing buds are kind of swollen so I toy with the idea that she's beginning her pre-molt fast and seeing that she's not really skinny, I put her back in her cage and leave her alone. Then a few (probably like 10 after typing all of this) minutes ago, I check up on her, she's on the ground again. I take her out the cage and she's doing the EXACT SAME THING the previous mantids did. Hanging on with only her claws and the rest of her body and legs dangling underneath her, like she's trying to pull herself up with just her arms. I put her on my floor for further inspection and she clutches the carpet and I had to struggle to get her off the floor. I gave her water, honey, changed jars again, and put paper towel at the top of her container and placed her on it to help her grip. But realistically it's not her grip, it's her. Right now she's hanging from the paper towel by her arms and two of her legs, but mainly her arms in a very awkward position with her head face down in the paper towel.
I'm not hopeful that she'll live. And this has been a very trying, time consuming and financial waste to try and breed such a cool species only to fail miserably when this is supposed to be taken care of like "typical" mantids. What I really want is some sort of answer as to what is wrong with them. Is it something I'm doing? Again, I've experiment with humidity and temperature, the food they eat is "clean" as are their containers. They just seem to deteriorate for no reason and it's very frustrating to see them die in front of my eyes with there be nothing I can do, especially because this is my only female and my male is waiting for her to molt to adulthood.
She's dead. I took her out and put her near my laptop to give her some heat. And she just laid there next to it. About 10 minutes later I check on her and she's gone. Smh, this sucks.
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