something on my mantis?

[Sunny1]

Hey all,
How's the mantis's?
Just a question about my little mantis. not sure what sort it is, it came with some LR that incidentally was for the mantis house. i've had him for about a month, he was in "his" tank for a few days until the rock started going bad so i put him in the hospital tank in my reef until his tank was settled.
originally i thought that he was going to die as he was very unwell when i fished him out, doing the "dance of death" in the corner. but since he's been in the holding tank in the reef he's been doing well. eating, exploring etc.
His tank finally finished cycling so i moved him & his rock over 3 days ago. before i did i wasn't seeing him as frequently but he was poking his head out of his rock occasionally.
when he got in the new tank he was all interested & was eating some prawn that i fed him, i didn't see him yesterday at all but this afternoon when i looked in i noticed that he'd shed, there was some shed tossed out of his rock, so i poked some more prawn at him which he ate, then he was under the rock doing something with his shed.
i've just been watching him now & he's in the corner on his back & it looks like there's something on his "stomach" i've tried to get a pic of it for you but it's not all that good, i nkow that it's hard without a pic but any thoughts? if he was on land i'd say that he had a tick.
also any id if possible would be helpful, before he shed he was brown & white striped with yellow underneath. now he's almost a green striped colour.
btw he's from Australia
cheers
i'm working on the pic

 

[RogueCorps]

Hi Sunny,

Unfortunately the best guy for the job of IDing has left on sabatical for about a year. I'd guess that it might have a parasitic isopod attached to it while maybe vulnerable from molting. From what I've observed Mantises are very articulate and are able to groom from head to tail.

If it's a male you may be seeing a pair of gonopods beneath the last pair of legs. I'd advise putting it in a container that you can view from the bottom for a positive ID. If it is an isopod you should try to remove it. It wouldn't be an easy thing to do and I don't believe Dr. Carlson ever left any info on restraining a mantis while doing anything like this. To be safe, wear gloves and remove the parasite with forceps or tweezers while keeping out of range of the appendages.

Good luck with it!

-Rogue

 

[Sunny1]

well i know that this probably sounds base, but it does look like my manits had balls
what's classed as "legs", i know that this is a dumb question but looking at pics from side on of mantis's i'd say that the "legs" are just behind the "bashers", then there's the sort of flap things that they're continually fanning themselves with. it's on the flap sort of things between the last & second last set before the tail where this thing is.
get what i'm trying to describe?

 

[RogueCorps]

Whoops... sorry about that.

(Image from Secrets of the Stomatopod .

Yeah, that is confusing isn't it... Legs on their mouth, legs on their tail...

I believe that the gonopods of a male are between the third set of pereiopods. On females, the gonopores look like a figure eight between the first pereiopods.

-Rogue

 

[Drew_P]

females have gonopores:

males have penise(s).

internal fertilization, similar to humans.

is there a possobility for a picture?

 

[Drew_P]

oh btw, how big is your mantis?

 

[Sunny1]

that's the area that i mean, the pleopods, it is between the 3rd ones. i'll try with this pic. i didn't see him last night but i could hear him. hopefully he'll come out tonight.
he's about 1 - 1.5"
i know that the pic is really bad but i had to try to get it small enough to post it. as you can kinda see he's green, the area that i'm talking about is the white area.
i just didn't want to pull his "balls" off if that's what it was. tweezers on standby if required

 

[Sunny1]

doesn't matter now, he's dead
i was looking for him in the tank & i noticed one of his new "bashers" on the floor. i was looking closer & found the other one, i knew then that i'd better try to find him for better or worse. i looked in all the rocks etc but couldn't see him, finally turned over the last piece of rock & there he was in a mucous net under the rock. i don't know what happened to him as there's nothing else in the tank that could eat him.
oh well, thanx for the help anyway

 

[lilswanwillow]

if you are going to get a mantis for that tank in the future, you might want to figure out what killed him...

look at his body (yes, this IS gross) and see if you can find the area you were worried about.

when george died, his body was very well preserved (no crap in the tank to eat the body) and you could see EVERYTHING very clearly. dissections are fun too!!!

 

[Sunny1]

sad to say that i couldn't see anything on him at all, but there wasn't much to work with as he had turned into a pink disintergrating blob. i did try but couldn't see anything

 

[Gonodactylus]

Indo-Pacific gonodactylids sometimes have ectoparasitic snails. The female, which is usually larger, sits between the last pair of walking legs and the male between the first. When the female lays her eggs, she moves back on the gills and attaches the egg sacks to the filiments. The snails do not kill the stomatopods, but they do weaken them.

Gonodactylus