g. ternatensis lost his raptoral appendages

[cchase231]

Hello there, I am new to mantis shrimp, I have been reading on rc a while for info regarding my reef (not posting much) and once I got my mantis have been hanging around these forums. my 3-4 inch g. tern has lost her raptoral appendages, or at least the bashing part. I found one in the sandbed and havnt a clue what happened to the other one. My questions are:
what would cause this
will they grow back (as far as I know they will come back after many molts, but just double checking)
she cant smash things now right? so should I feed only soft frozen foods?
any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Gonodactylus]

The most common reason for stomatopods to lose their raptorial appendages is physiological stress. This often occurs during shipping and transfer. It can be caused by factors such as low oxygen, high or low salinity, extreme temperatures (high or low), and organic solvents. The initial sign of trouble is an extended propodus that the animal can no longer fold back against the merus. After a few days the animal usually tears off the old appendage and grows a new one (which will that three or four molts and up to a year - depending on size and species). We know a bit about the muscle physiology that makes this appendage so vulnerable to stress, but I won't go into that here.

A second cause of loss is physical damage. Things break and stomatopod raptorial appendages are no different. Once broken, the only way to fix it is to pull it off and grow a new one. Sometimes this means the loss of the entire appendage, but often if only the dactyl or the propodus and dactyl are damaged, the merus is retained. This shortens the time to full regeneration.

A third cause of loss is a mishap during molting. The raptorial appendage is a big structure to squeeze through the old moltskin and sometimes it gets stuck. If the animal cannot free itself, it pulls off the entire appendage. This can be caused by recent damage to the appendage causing the old and new cuticle to fuse, or it can be due to the animal being in a weakened condition and unable to pull free.

Finally, I have suggested that exercise of the raptorial appendage is important. Animals that don't strike often seem to lose muscle tone and this seems to increase the changes of losing the raptorial appendages during a molt. Use it or lose it.

Roy

 

[cchase231]

I would have to think that it is stress or molting trouble, I did a little searching in the tank and found the other appendage, it is not the whole appendage just the "club". I had moved her tank recently and Im sure that caused quite a bit of stress, but she was striking shortly after that and then went into hiding about a week and a half later, I figured she was molting, when she came out again she was missing her raptorial appendages, so that leads me to believe it could have been a molting problem, maybe a combination of things. Im going to feed her strictly soft foods for now, clams, muscles, krill, and silversides until she molts a few times, im hoping a varied diet will help, think that is a good idea? Are there any other foods that are particularly nutritious? On a side note she has the typical ternatensis pattern, red intersegmental spots and orange meral spots, but her antennal scales are green, I was told she was a female, but on your id site is says that the antennal scales are orange in females and blue in males. Any idea on what sex it is?

 

[Gonodactylus]

Probably female. Male antennal scales are deep blue.

Roy