Molting

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Scary larry 21

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Hi guys...I am kinda new to the manthis world. My daughter got her ghost manthis at the end of august. So far it has only molted once and that was at the end of September.  Is this normal?

 
Scary larry 21 said:
Hi guys...I am kinda new to the manthis world. My daughter got her ghost manthis at the end of august. So far it has only molted once and that was at the end of September.  Is this normal?
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that depends...

ghosts are slow to mature, and so if your ghost molted to the subadult stage, it's probably another few weeks away from a molt. if it molted to an adult (with wings), it will NEVER molt again

also, what are your parameters? cooler temps will make molts less frequent. ghosts are a madagascan species that probably grow best at about 80F. While temps in the 60s will suffice for them, the development time to maturity will certainly be a LOT longer. I suspect that the species that grow at a decent pace at room temperature have enzymes that have wider thermal optima. This would be confirmed by rearing a number of species at different temps and seeing how much an increase in temperature decreases development time for each. my suspicion is that some species, while their growth rate still increases with an increase in temp, increase by a smaller factor (so perhaps 1.5 times instead of 2 times)

also, @Rick please move this thread to the general discussions :)

 
Hi guys...yes Larry is still following the forum. I appreciate the info but that went way over our heads. Larry lives at room tempature in san diego. So probably about 70-75 but has a small light kept on him. For sure Larry in not a adult. He's the size of a nickel give or take

 
Scary larry 21 said:
Hi guys...yes Larry is still following the forum. I appreciate the info but that went way over our heads. Larry lives at room tempature in san diego. So probably about 70-75 but has a small light kept on him. For sure Larry in not a adult. He's the size of a nickel give or take
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It sounds like your ghost is somewhere between L4-5 (maybe a tad younger, never owned a ghost). This is when their molting starts to slow down and take a bit long. 
ghost-mantis-development-and-growth-1.jpg


 
Ok thanks. That was what I was guessing. Now I it normal that he hasn't molted since September. And when it says the day on the chart does that mean how many days since last molt or a continuation of days. For example going from L4 to L5 does that mean it should be roughly 30 days or another 63 days from the L4 molt

 
Scary larry 21 said:
Ok thanks. That was what I was guessing. Now I it normal that he hasn't molted since September. And when it says the day on the chart does that mean how many days since last molt or a continuation of days. For example going from L4 to L5 does that mean it should be roughly 30 days or another 63 days from the L4 molt
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no it is not normal that he hasn't molted since September! Even the subadult stage isn't that long

I wonder how much he is fed or what the temperatures are in

the chart means 63 days from hatching.

sometimes I see mantises that just fail to grow. They get stuck at an instar and eventually die. I am not sure if that's what you're dealing with

 
Yes that is very interesting and kinda confirmed what I was thinking. As far as what he eats, he eats flightless fruit flies. We haven't moved to up to something bigger since he is so small. She feeds him about about 2-3 a day. But he really seems to have no interest in food or water

 
Scary larry 21 said:
Yes that is very interesting and kinda confirmed what I was thinking. As far as what he eats, he eats flightless fruit flies. We haven't moved to up to something bigger since he is so small. She feeds him about about 2-3 a day. But he really seems to have no interest in food or water
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I would be using houseflies or bottleflies at i4. that is likely your issue

these hatch out large enough to handle Drosophila hydei, by i4 these are way too small!

I'd warm him up a bit and spritz, see if that helps

 

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