Rest in Peace Reagan

Reagan died trying to molt. Not sure what happened, moisture was good, she didn't fall and she had a great place to hang for it. Will be in search of a new female soon.

Just went to check on Reagan she is attempting to molt, I will keep you updated. I have never had one act so strangely before molting so not sure what is up. Maybe she just needed to molt, and will be better tomorrow. She still seems extremely weak as she is hanging from her stick attempting to get out of her old skin. Moisture and humidity are good/high so hopefully that helps.

Madison molted on the 19th. Sorry I haven't been posting but have had a stomach bug. Also, Reagan appears to be sick. At first I thought she was just not eating because she was getting ready to molt, but no molt yet and she appears to be weak. She falls and will lay on the bottom of her tank or just hang motionless and stiff on her stick. She has the  look of a mantis that they get before they die, so she might not make it. My experience is I have never lost a young mantis, only lost them of old age so not sure what is wrong with her. I have kept her tank misted to encourage molting and today I got her to nibble on some fruit, hoping it would pep her up a bit, but so far no luck. We shall see what happens. Everyone else is doing great, when I am feeling a bit better I will take some more pics, still need to share the new Kennedy with you all.

Changes

I'll post new pictures soon but wanted to let everyone know about a change we made. Today I released Kennedy the male that molted just a few days ago. He has been replaced with a female! Found her today, and she certainly looks female. I wanted to keep our numbers down to 4, because we just don't have the time or room for more than 4. So now I believe we have two females, Reagan and Kennedy and two males Nixon and Madison. I am excited to have two females to lay eggs and will be on the look out after mating them once for another other males to take in to use just for mating purposes.  One mating will get the job done, but I have found sometimes double mating them a week or two apart is a good thing too.

Kennedy molted

Well we have another sub-adult in the house! Kennedy molted last night. If timing works out like it did with the last molt in about 4 more days Reagan should molt. Keeping an eye on things, all 4 are eating and doing well.

Nixon molted and has pretty wing buds!

Mr. Nixon molted over night last night, woke up to find him much bigger and with big wing buds, probably just one more molt left for him and he will be an adult! Will need to upgrade his housing soon and the rest of the bunch too so they don't go flying out every time I feed them. Need something that has a feeder hole in it.

Reagan Molted and Sexing mantis

Reagan molted! She is beautiful. My pictures don't do her justice, she has little black speckles on her back that make her super pretty. Yes, I said she. That brings me to my next topic. Sexing (no not sexTing that is another subject all together lol) mantids.

The basic rule is females have 6 abdominal segments while males have 8. The final segment of the female is much larger than the others while the male has several small segments towards the end of the abdomen. You can also tell by the shape. A male is kind of stick shaped, one length all the way down pretty much. Females have a fat wide bottom. When they get their wings a males will be longer than the body and they fly about. Females have wings shorter than their whole body and they typically don't fly a lot, because they are usually too fat. Counting segments on baby nymph mantis are hard so I wasn't sure what we had. I am still not 100% certain, but....

Reagan appears to be female and I am pretty sure of that, but if I can't find one I'll mate all 3 with Reagan.based off segments and also the fact she is fat and wide now. I am almost 100% sure the 3 others are male. I will be on the look out for another female, to increase my changes of a higher number of fertile eggs
 Again sexing them is kind of hard at this stage, I haven't ever had this much trouble! I must be out of practice. We will see as they continue to molt, each should have at least one more molt. Possibly two. Will have to go look at pics in detail, but a few have wing buds now which means they should get their wings next molt.