Zombie nymph

[Keith]

I have a strange dubia nymph. It's the only one out of 50+ that is doing this.

The nymph looks like any other, it's healthy looking at glance and is eating and going to the bathroom and is the same size and color as its siblings.

The trouble is sometimes it doesn't move like its dead even when touched or held, then a while later is walking around.

The only noticeable difference is when it walks it can only do so very slowly, it cannot run, almost like you or me wearing clothes skin tight restricting proper movement. It antennae move normally, I also noticed when "at rest" its head is droopy facing down like it cant raise it. Sometimes it walks slowly and nibbles on food, other times its still and looks like it died but if you come back later it moved to another part of the cage!

My guess was it needed to shed and had trouble explaining the weird movement, so I put it in a warm cage misted with water for high humidity, and left it alone, hoping it would shed. I came back and nothing, the roach seemed worse off walking after so I just put it back in the original tank and within the hour it was back to walking.

All my other roaches are normal and healthy, so what's up with this one?

 

[Keith]

I was reading further and found an article about a wasp that stings roaches but they are still mobile, just in an altered state to walk to the wasps burrow so she lays eggs on it. I know this wasp doesn't live here, but could a small spider have fell in and bit this roach a tiny bit enough to not have killed it and then crawled out without me noticing, I do sometimes get tiny spiders in my room that came in through window cracks.

 

[Keith]

Meant to update the roach died, it lasted 3 weeks after first becoming zombie like by surviving on baby food, but eventually it died. It appears it never was able to shed and died from that, since over 30 other nymphs were fine this one probably had something wrong.