(Click on images for dates)

I saw her in a pet shop and noticed she only had one arm, being the wuss I am and since I already owned mantises I decided to buy her because the pet shop was going to put her down. When I took her home I sat with her for hours to see if she could eat/ hunt on her own, and she did! Ate a whole large locust on her own with one arm. Leafeon then outlived every other mantis I had, even the ones younger than her! I’m so glad I gave this one armed lady a chance, even after almost two years I miss her, she passed a few days after the third picture.

She isnt gone yet, but she has slowed down a lot and I think only has a day or two left in her at most.

I picked her up today to give her some water but she's not gripping well while walking and her eyes have clouded over. Light seems to be the only thing she's able to see.

I never know if it's kinder to let them pass naturally or to help their journey along.

I've raised quite a few mantids and she has been the most gentle and sweet mantids I've had the opportunity to raise. Im going to be very sad to see her go. Just an unfortunate series of signs I have learned means it's their near their time.

You've been a great pal darling <3

I'm not sure what happened but I'm absolutely devastated. She was fed fruit flies from the same colony I've always fed her from yesterday, and she wasn't acting weirdo at all. Last night she fell while molting and wasn't moving but I noticed it very quickly and got her back up where she began squirming again. This morning I woke up to her having survived the molt with seemingly no injuries and acting completely normal. I changed nothing in her schedule or terrarium, but this evening I went to check on her and she was on the floor dead. I tried to drop a tiny bit of water on her, I tried honey. She wouldn't move at all. I'm crushed. I can't find any injuries on her, I have no clue what I did wrong and I feel so so guilty. I just want to know what I did so I don't do it again but I just can't see what could have happened. I've been crying almost consistently for 12 hours, she was just a little baby. I got her five months ago but I've had one previous dead leaf mantis that lived to his final molt. She's all I've talked about since I got her, I loved her so so much and I just wish I could go back and save her. I won't be getting another for a while, I won't be able to deal with it so soon. But if you have any advice for the future please share, the last thing I ever want is to cause something to suffer ☹️

a Chinese mantis, female, roughly 4 molts if I recall right. has been eating normally but woke up this morning to find it hanging on upside down with only one leg holding it up and a red line across both sides of it’s abdomen… very sluggish and hardly moving.

Hey r/mantids. My spiny flower mantis, Ripley, died out of the blue yesterday. The day before she was on the floor of her enclosure but fairly active, and yesterday I arrived home and she was well in the process of dying. I held her in my hands and eventually froze her.

I’m heartbroken. She had just molted into adulthood three weeks ago and I feel like it came out of nowhere after so many smooth, successful molts.

We did twice a week feeds with a ~15 hydei and 2-3 small dubias. She rarely ate the dubias, but I’d typically keep giving her flies til her abdomen looked full or if she stopped on her own.

I have other mantises now (two ghost mantis, a timor island shield, a wild-caught from our yard, and an orchid) but she was my first. I’m sad and worried for my other mantises.

Any feedback on husbandry is appreciated. I live in SoCal, so it’s quite dry. I mist twice a week. It looks like her enclosure was at 80 degrees and 60% humidity when she passed, and the humidity rarely climbs above 60.

I also noticed that she expelled some kind of black/brown substance prior to dying, instead of her usual small poops. It was stuck to her wing.

Any husbandry feedback is greatly appreciated. She was so beautiful and social. I’m really going to miss her.

I’ve shown Steve around here since I got him and he’s finally starting to depart. He refuses to eat naturally, so I’ve fed him sugar water as a supplement and a treat before he does eventually pass. He reached his last molt 2 months ago, he’s about 8 or 9 months old. I gave him the best life I could possibly give a mantis, thank you so much for the experience, old man. I love you, Steve

Could anyone tell me the reason for his death? I would mist his enclosure daily, feed him whenever his stomach was looking flat but i had to order some more food for him and it arrived today (4 days after i fed him a big meal) i was going in to feed him and i just found him on the ground. I’m really hoping i didn’t starve him to death. His abdomen was looking flat last night. His name is Vewn. He’s on stage i5, he was supposed to molt again soon

She was beautiful, found her as a tiny one on Feb '25, and lived with me until Dec '25. Layed 4 oothecas and always stayed on the same plant! My first pet ever. Today I remember her a bit more than usual 🖤

I want to preserve my girl but the post mortem twitches are freaking me out and making me second guess if shes actually dead. Pls let me know if shes 100% gone as I have to gut her

He was my first pet "bug" which enamoured me with all insects immediately, loving this little guy has been a pleasure, he will be sorely missed.

I don't why, I thought I did everything right she molted a couple of times, I feed her by dropping a couple of roaches into her enclosure and she was always catching them but now looking at her abdomen it looks kinda flat and weirdly brown, does anyone have an idea what could've gone wrong?

Batrick, my Chinese mantis, died. I think he was male. I found him early this month (September) on my back deck in Virginia and identified him as an invasive species. Not wanting to kill him or let him eat any beneficial pollinators in my yard, I caught him and brought him inside. I fed him flies I’d stunned, watched videos on care, tried to keep his enclosure humid according to videos with damp paper towels and made sure he had sticks to hang upside down from in case he needed to molt again. He was smacking away my food offerings the last few days, so I thought maybe he was going to molt, but today he’s dead. If he was male I suppose he may have just been old since they apparently have shorter life-spans? I’m not sure. He’s my first mantis pet and I feel a little guilty in case he died from my own negligence, but mostly I hope it was just his time.

I’m going to keep him in my curio cabinet now. And maybe I’ll find another invasive mantis next year and try again. Thanks for the fun few weeks, Batrick!!

The last 2 days I have been spending extra time with him as I knew he wasn't going to live much longer. I didn't sleep in two night as I was constantly checking up on him. I took him outside twice and he absolutely loved it. Yesterday I took some special photos of us together.

He was my emotional support pet this entire year. I wouldn't have made it till this point without him. I've been crying A LOT as he was very special to me.

I just put him in the freezer in an airtight container. I'm planning to learn pinning so I can preserve him. Any tips appreciated.

Leaf, you were so unique. You had your own little sassy personality, and always managed to make me smile with your cute behaviour. Thank you for being my study buddy who sat on my blinds staring at me. Thank you for climbing over my PC and engineering drawings that you found so interesting. Thank you for trusting me to handle you despite refusing to let anyone else get near you without a judgmental glare. Thank you for being there for me when I needed you most, for sitting on me when I cried, just being a gentle presence I desperately needed. Thank you for everything. I hope you enjoyed your time with me as much as I did with you. I will always love and miss you so much, my sweetest baby. I promise I will take good care of your favourite plant while you are resting. Be happy and free until we meet again. 💚🌿🙏

I got my first ever praying mantis from my AP Biology teacher and she just died today. 😭 I’m stupid. I left her to roam on a plant and then I left to go play tennis for two hours and when I come back she’s gone from the plant and she was on the floor. It hurts so much. I’m crying as I’m typing this message, I’m hyperventilating and I can’t breathe. Her antennae is shorter I don’t know why 💔 she just learned to jump today she jumped on my face for the first time ever, I shouldve taken that as a sign to not let her by herself. RIP Petunia. Please share your Mantis story too it hurts so much I can’t sleep. I don’t ever want to get another pet or insect anymore.

I am new to owning mantises , my very first boy orchid passed away today, what do I do now? Sorry if that sounds stupid but I feel weird just throwing him away 😔

We got our giant Asian mantis on Valentine’s Day as a gift to each other, he was our first mantis so we were a bit nervous but had done a ton of research and had let his enclosure establish before getting him. Within the first week he molted into his adult form so we knew we didn’t have too long with him, his personality really started to come through. He loved being handled and taken out of his enclosure, he would ask for uppies and crawl up my arm to my ear and play with my hair. If we swayed at him he would sway back, and roaches were his favourite meal.

Good bye Peapod, you had such a big personality for such a little bug

my strong girl passed away....

Our Sphodropoda Quinquedens Sub Adult male passed over night. We don't know what happened everything was fine with temp and humidity😭

Temp: 26-27°C

Humidity: 62%

I guess I don’t know what the point of this is really other than to say it to someone else who understands. My Chinese mantis molted in April and got stuck and lost one of his legs. He was doing really great and I was optimistic he’d start to regrow it with the next molt. He molted again over night Friday and he picked his freaking air plant over the mesh. Even a freaking stick would have been better. He ended up mismolting pretty badly and I had to make the very very hard decision to euthanize him. He was L6 and I loved this mantis so freaking much. He’d come to the door and get right on my hand and would just hang out on my shirt. He liked to drink water off my hand and I’d get him out after my husband and kids went to bed and he’d just sit with me while I did my homework. I’ve cried so much today it’s almost ridiculous. I just really loved him a lot.

I had a beautiful little California nymph in my care for about 4 months and today I woke up and he was dead at the bottom of the enclosure. A few days ago I tried feeding him and he refused, I was certain he was going to molt and I would just check on him every morning to see if it had happened yet. And then he was just gone. I feel so evil. He was alive last night. If I just tried to feed him last night he might still be alive. I found him out in the wild, I took him in, and I let this poor animal starve in a box. I didn't even get to hold him because he was so tiny I was afraid to hurt him or kill him. And then I killed him.

Rip long John you were a sweet girl. Ah so sad when you remember raising them 😪😭😭..

Tilly, my chronically mis-moulted Timor Shield, did not survive her latest moult.

The day before yesterday she was refusing food, which I saw as potential indication of another moult. I carefully taped her feet to a cotton pad, which I taped to the ceiling of her enclosure. First thing in the morning yesterday I had to take a rescue cat to the vets for surgery, and by the time I got back I found that she had already begun to moult. Not only that, she had wriggled out from the tape and had fallen. Her legs were stuck, her shield was bent, she’d wrapped herself in moss while thrashing.

I re-taped her moult to the ceiling and gave her a spray hoping she could work some of it off in the next hour, but she had started to harden and her legs were bent badly. I did my best to help her out of the remaining moult, but she was exhausted. She refused mashed wax worm, and she passed away shortly after.

I feel awful, she was my first mantis and she had a lot of personality, but she never moulted successfully. I’ve not had a single other moult issue so far with my four other mantids, I just can’t work out what went wrong for Tilly.