Bad Molt...Incomplete Molt...???

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mantisboy

mantisboy

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My largest female Euro (3.5 inches) had her final molt last night. I could tell she was gonna molt 2 days ago so I removed any feeders, rearranged her sticks to accomodate her large size and kept the walls of her housing misted.

Everything went like clockwork and seemed right on schedule as she hung suspended from her shedded exoskeleton. Her wings were starting to inflate but when she moved around a bit she detached from exoskeleton and fell. I quickly lifted her up and got her on to hang from the stick, no harm, no foul as she grasped on without any problems. She hung suspended from her front legs as wings did what they are supposed to do. Everything checking out I went to bed. I figured I would find her in good shape this morning and for the most part she is.

However it's strange, everything is 100% except for her wings. It seems like they have not fully dried out, shrunk, and that she cannot fully retract them. They are not malformed but it appears that she cannot fully retract them. Anyone ever experience this? I am hoping as the day progresses this will change as her wings to be slowly drying out more. However 12 hours seems like extraordinary amount of time to be able for wings to fully retract.

 
The wings are the most common thing to be damage during the last molt in my experience. I wouldn't expect them to be normal again, but it shouldn't hurt in other than its appearance.

 
Sneaky123 said:
http://mantidforum.n...&attach_id=2306

Does it look anything like this?
Click to expand...
Similar in color for the first 12 hours, hers are fully formed and seem to have dried out , she can't retract them though ..poor thing...she flutters them..so she's trying. I am gonna give her a couple of days and cut them as Wolfpuppy suggested. Outside of that given her size she is awesome. Oh well, I guess in a certain sense she lucked out as meals, beverages and misting showers will be provided for her throughout her life.

 
Weird.....she died...had a ball of some yellowish gelatinous type goo on one of her wings...to bad r.i.p.

 
Not really sure to be honest, after 48 hours I put a cricket in with her and although she watched it intently she never attempted to catch it. I examined her abdomen but there didn't seem to be any issues there. I almost think her wings hanging down like shower curtains just drained of her strength or something. When I checked on her in the morning she was barely hanging from a branch, front legs only. So I placed a lid underneath her and slowly lowered her down and she just collapsed.

I performed mantid cpr so to speak, a shiska bob spear tipped in honey with water sprayed on it, but she was too far gone. With that I put her in a jar and placed the jar in the freezer.

 
Huh... If youre right about the wings thing im glad mine is a limbata with short wings...

Sorry to hear about that though. Sometimes we just cant control these things.

 

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