Rest in Peace my friend

[MantisBrad]

Well.... Something very strange happened yesterday. The day was going normal. I awoke to the noise of my mantis shrimp hitting rocks (nothing new) So I go to work and around 2:30pm I get a call from my room mate telling me she thinks my Mantis Shrimp Amadeus is dead. I was very skeptical on this because the shrimp was alive just 6 hours earlier. Well, when I get home from work I find the shrimp, dead in the tank. My room mate said that the shrimp was just hitting stuff like normal and then she heard a really loud click, much louder than normal, then silence.. When I found the shrimp it was missing one of it's raptures it uses to hit stuff. The thing that gets me is this shrimp was so active, it was eating on a regular basis, and was visually healthy (no shell disease). Anyone know what could have happened?

RIP

Keep on clubbin'!

[/QUOTE]

 

[MantisBrad]

Re: Rest in Peace my friend

errr. double post.

 

[DylanE]

really sorry to hear about your mantis... I don't know what could've happened.

 

[McLaughlin4]

Sure he didnt just mault ?

 

[illybang]

hmmm, well, maybe if you have a powerhead or something in your tank, there could be a possibility that it mistakenly stuck it's appendage in the fan's way? don't know if that's possible, but it could explain the loud "click" and the missing 'limb'.

other than that, i don't know. ran into the tank wall too hard?

either way, sorry for your loss.

 

[Gonodactylus]

This is a strange one. My best guess is that the animal bleed to death. Stomatopods do not have special fracture zones like crabs that allow them to autotomize an appendage minimizing blood loss. I suspect that your animal was approaching a molt (still days away because it could strike), was remodeling the burrow and broke a raptorial appendage. Usually the bleeding clots quickly and the animal is alright, but occasionally something goes wrong (break in the wrong place or there is disease) and the animal bleeds out.

Roy

 

[MantisBrad]

Thanks for the Reply everyone. Thanks Dr. Roy, that makes much more sense.

 

[kdblove_99]

Sorry to hear. One a good note that is a phenomenol pic you took of him in action