Yellow S. limbata female subadults going blind

[cloud jaguar]

I have 2 yellow morph s. limbata female subadults, wildcaught from different locations 5 miles apart. Both were perfectly healthy when found as L4s. They have been kept under identical conditions, in dry so cal. they have been fed both flies and crickets, misted every other day. Of all our limbatas these are the only two going blind. So far only small dots on the eyelids that make them look like comic book characters. Since they are subadult i have faith that they can shed out of the condition? hopefully

supposedly there is no known cause for the blindness. it just seems odd to me that the same condition is affecting similar aged yellow morph nymphs. generally speaking, i have found the pink, white, yellow morph of s. limbata to be generally of weaker constitututuion than a green.

i think that they dark spot on their eyes is caused by a separation of the two layers of skin of the mantid... anyone know otherwise? perhaps it is more than coincidence that both afflicted mantids are yellow morph?

 

[Rick]

Mantids don't have eye lids The black spot condition is very common. I almost always have at least one mantis with at least one small black spot. I have seen them spread and cover the eyes. The mantids are never blind though.

 

[MantidLord]

My M. religiosa female molted from a subadult to an adult and obtained the black dots on both of her eyes. They make her look strange but she's definitely not blind and its never spread either. Im thinking that maybe something hit her eye during or right after the molt.

 

[cloud jaguar]

i think that they dark spot on their eyes is caused by a separation of the two layers of skin of the mantid...

lol, not eyelids, i mean between the old exoskeleton and the new one forming underneath for the molt to adult. glad to hear they can still see despite the dot at the center of their eyes.

 

[PhilinYuma]

Mantids don't have eye lids

Except for Blepharopsis mendica, the thistle mantis! :lol:

 

[Rick]

Hopefully nobody confuses this topic with the black dot that all mantids have in each eye.

 

[jameslongo]

Is it because they are bashing heads on the side of their plastic container due to some outside stimulus? That's happened to me with the Aussie answer to Stagmomantis.