Mismolt death?
Hey all, I’m here with a concerned question. This is my first mantis, Winky, and it was on Saturday that he began his first molt since having him. Left him alone, but Sunday morning this was at the bottom of his enclosure. I didn’t immediately jump to assuming that he had fallen from his mesh at the top and died, considering I didnt 100% know what their exoskeleton looks like if he did molt successfully. After noticing this at the bottom of his enclosure, I began looking around the entire enclosure top to bottom without disrupting anything inside of it- absolutely no sign of him other than what’s in this picture. Even today, I’ve looked all around his enclosure with a very close eye, and don’t see anything. I have read that after a molt they may hide. Im really just not sure what the case is here.
I wanted to get the opinions of others in this sub based on these pictures if this looks like an exoskeleton of a nymph, or if Winky has died. The size of his body in these pictures is a good 3-4x smaller than the size of his body before his molting commencing on Saturday evening. Saturday he was the biggest he’d been, that this doesn’t even look like the same mantis. I might just be holding out false hope that he’s somewhere hidden in the enclosure and will show himself by tomorrow. Wanted to see what you guys thought.