What killed my manits?

[blacknova]

After about 5 months of raising my first mantis, and a successful molt along the way, my Egyptian Pygmy mantis, Zorak died. It was fast, and started with it not eating which I took notice of with concern but that was about the only odd thing. Sometime my mantid would do this. Then a black spot appeared and within 24 it was dead. You can see from the photos I took while it happened how quickly it progressed in 24 hours. I hope someone can help identify what this is as I plan on getting more mantids, and want to avoid this at all costs if possible from happening again.

 

[[email protected]]

It looks like she ate something bad. It is probably an infection of some sort. Were all your feeder insects clean?  Crickets have to be kept really clean.  Also, if they eat each other, or if the dead ones are not removed right away, infection could spread. Or wherever you got your feeder insects from could have not been keeping them clean.  I'm just basing this off my experience.  That happened to me once, when I had an overfed mantis that ate a big dirty cricket. 

I'm so sorry for your loss.  She was beautiful!

 

[[email protected]]

Also, it is possible on top of the infection she might have been egg bound.  It looks like something bad got "stuck" in her abdomen. Has she been laying ooths?

 

[Krissim Klaw]

What type of enclosure where you keeping her in? Something with little airflow like a delicup can easily result in stagnant conditions that encourage mold growth if there is to much moisture.

 

[blacknova]

I was keeping her in the enclosure that she came with from Mantis Pets.com. She did start laying eggs, I had to remove one ooth, and she was placed on the deli cup lid just to make sure everything showed up in the picture. The worst part was I had to help her pass because she lingered like that for a day, and was getting progressively worse. Thankfully I knew what to do from collecting insects in the past for pinning but it was definitely hard even doing that, it was just hard because of how sudden it was, and she was in amazing health up to that point.

 

[Rick]

It is tough to say what killed her. I can say though that this particular condition is fairly common. I've had many mantids just drop dead and I have no idea why. I believe it is just a part of this hobby.