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Praying mantis abdominal collapse-

Cheers everyone had a Health question about praying mantis; mainly Chinese mantis / Tenodrea sinensis but a few other species exhibit same symptoms on occation. I have been raising praying mantis as a hobby for several years now. Raise & breed T.sinensis mainly in the winter and do exotics in the summer time.
The condition I refer to is when the mantis is usually L5 to L7 and the Abdomen becomes collapsed / flattened just behind the legs causing that area to fold unnaturally. Resulting in low to no food intake or bowel release / scat with a 75% mortality rate.
In my experience I've always attributed to crickets as the feeder food causing a bacterial infection in the mantis digestive track.
Crickets as a main food source is not a good option that's why they are just a part of the mantis diet; crickets are very dirty,urine is very high in ammonia and more often than not they have parasites such as horsehair worms as they get in the older instar. So I mainly try and use very young low instar cricket nymphs just for the ground mantis Chinese mantis etc. Once the mantis contracts this condition where the abdomen collapses and sometimes bends to a 90° angle i'll try and gut flush / only feed it with honey powder and Beepollen diluted water and raise the temperature by 10°F. Thinking it may be a bacterial or viral infection raising the temperature trying to kill them, and feeding the mantis anti-bacterial viral supplements; 25% of the time I can the nurse the mantis back to health to complete another molt & the condition goes away & the mantis survives to adulthood & breeds.

But many other mantis breeders disagree and have several othe theories on why this condition occurs & what can or cannot be done about it to prevent it and or to recover from it ; collapsed abdomen.
So I would like to hear anyone else's opinion with theory or fact and why this condition occurs would be greatly appreciated by myself will learn something and all the many people that ask me about it I will pass on the information whole heartedly because I love praying mantis and I enjoy helping other people love praying mantis as well...
thank you for your comments ideas and opinions, cheers😃 = )

Praying mantis abdominal collapse
Thank you for posting about this. I have 2 Chinese mantids I've raised since they hatched. One has molted 5 times, one 4 times. 2 days ago I noticed that the one that has molted 5 times has severe abdominal collapse. I had started feeding them small crickets from Petco 4 days ago, prior to that I was feeding them flightless fruit flies. If anyone has any updated info on what I should do to help them survive, I would really appreciate it.

Praying mantis abdominal collapse
I'm so relieved to see this post. I hatched a European mantis egg in the spring because I had aphids on my pepper plants and more. A half dozen of them never left their natal fishbowl and anytime I tried to kick them out, my husband would shuffle his feet and look a little wistful because he liked watching them. So, for him, I have ended up raising two darling mantis that I'm now emotionally attached to. They each have a lovely repurposed 2 gallon beverage dispenser filled with sticks and leaves and they get flies delivered on a regular basis. Yesterday I freshened up the female's condo while my husband held her on his arm. Replacing her in the revamped jar was a bit of a challenge and she "dropped" in, but it didn't seem any worse than anytime she's fallen from the side of the jar with her regular business. This morning, she had the extreme bent abdomen and we were afraid we had injured her in this process. I reassured myself that she is a bug an will die in a couple months anyway, but we felt responsible for this apparent injury. She is L6... right in the range that you mention here. I will try some anti-bacterial infused water to see if that helps her. If you are still in attendance, I'd be interested and appreciative of any new observations you have to offer.

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