Ok.. I keep mantises, and this year only kept 3. One of them is quite small, compared to the other two, so I thought he might be a male. I took him out of his enclosure to do an underbelly line count (to determine sex), and while he was on my hand, he jumped off and fell underneath the microwave stand. Normally they are calm and don't jump, but I guess he was stressed. Well, I moved the stand very slowly and carefully, and looked under it. In the back of my head I knew something wasn't right.... I could see him, so my mom moved the stand as to not squish him under the wheels. Well, when we moved it, he came out, but then I saw that we had ran over a part of his abdomen, (the first time, when I moved it) and half of it was flattened, with a brown substance and a yellow substance coming out of the end of his abdomen.
He was still moving along normally, although obviously in some pain. I was quite upset, and I put him in a smaller inclosure so I can moniter him closely. I expect he wont live until tommorow.. but theres a small chance, so i'm going to do everything I can to help. I'm so upset. I know it was an accident, and animals die all the time, but I always get upset when I know that it was me who caused the suffering. Some of you may think he's just a bug, but to me he's more than that. I really hope he will live.. though I highly doubt he will be able to breed with the two girls I have, even if he does live. And what makes it worse is that my mom thinks that SHE did it, and won't let me tell her its my fault. So now she's upset, making me more upset than I already am. It's hard to have an injured animal and not feel for it, even an insect. I do really hope he lives...
~TR~
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