Mantid face ripped in the old shed skin?

One of my recently caught Carolina nymphs (Stagmomantis carolina), just molted to an adult. Sadly, however, she was flaring around in the bottom of her habitat. As mismolts have been uncommon for me anymore and her habitat was more than big enough, I was concerned and I tried to help.

I managed to straighten the still soft/wet mantid carefully by moving her habitat. She appeared to be doing better but then stared to flair around again in a minute and made it worse yet. I then noticed her face looked strange, and both her eyes were black. After straightening her again I noticed that her shed exoskeleton had color in it.

After a closer inspection the old shed skin had green coloration in the head area. It seems almost like her face became stuck and she pulled it off ripping her new soft skin from her face. Repeated attempts to straighten or help her were also in vain so I forced to place her in the freezer.

I was curious if anyone else has seen this happen and a possible cause? I know I misted her habitat yesterday, along with my others mantids, and today the room humidity is 48% RH; however, her habitat is still moist should be around 55%. As she is in the freezer and I refuse to let her suffer for a photo, I will add a photo later.

I'm very curious to see the exoskeleton.

Here are some photos of the Carolina mantid that was molting to an adult, and it's shed skin. As mentioned I found her in the bottom of her habitat and the shed skin was still on the mesh lid. In the photos you can see some of her substrate where she flailed around, the brown specks/pieces.

The old exoskeleton does have some of her new skin, and even her eyes (one complete, and the other partial) attached to it. Really a odd occurrence - no one has any ideas of what happened here?

Yikes that's gruesome.

Salmonsaladsandwich said:

Yikes that's gruesome.

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That it is for sure. I was shocked when I examined her closer - I've never seen anything like it, or heard of such a thing either. My various mantids have done over a hundred molts total by now easy, but I've never witnessed anything close to this before. Really strange, and hopefully no more of my pet mantids experience such a terrible end again.

Wow that is insane. Never seen anything like that before.

That is crazy, hopefully a one time deal for you Thomas.

I've seen it before. When an eye gets severely damaged during molting (usually, due to "stuck" skin), the entire eye collapses and turns into a shriveled mess. It's really sad and horrifying. I had it happen during winter, when the heat was running on full blast and the humidity in my room was dangerous low, despite multiple humidifiers and frequent spraying.

PlayingMantis said:

I've seen it before. When an eye gets severely damaged during molting (usually, due to "stuck" skin), the entire eye collapses and turns into a shriveled mess. It's really sad and horrifying. I had it happen during winter, when the heat was running on full blast and the humidity in my room was dangerous low, despite multiple humidifiers and frequent spraying.

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Thanks for commenting, I was really stumped by it, but I'm sorry to hear you had it happen too.

Wow... never seen anything like that.. .. Thank goodness.. sorry you had to witness it... I hope it never happens again!