My mantis are dying...

[dragontears]

I just got a few species of mantis including a couple ghost (P. paradoxa) and a couple boxer (H. brunneriana). One of the ghosts was DOA and one of the boxers was twitching and non-responsive on arrival...it died a few hours later.
I put the remaining two in dram vials about 4x their height (they were still quite small) with a mesh cover, twigs to hang from and slightly moist paper towels at the bottom. I misted the walls and then left them to settle in over night. Both were still alive in the morning when I left for work and both were dead when I got home from work 9 hours later.

I'm assuming that they died with shipping related stresses, and I'd like to get a couple more, but I want to make sure that my setups for them were acceptable so I don't kill the next ones I get.

Any thoughts?

 

[zonbonzovi]

Not sure about the Boxers, but P. paradoxa should have been a little hardier than that. Your setup sounds fine, although I didn't see anything about temp. They do appreciate higher temps(mid-80sF), but that shouldn't have been enough to kill them off so fast. Did you have LAG?

 

[dragontears]

temp in the spider room is kept at 75 degrees, that goes up a bit when it gets warmer outside, but it doesn't usually go above about 83. I've found that going much above that makes it difficult to keep enough moisture in most of the terrariums.
Should I put a heat mat down for the mantis?

There was a LAG, but there was also a pretty hefty overcount of the other species I got. It's just unfortunate that the only two I got of these 2 species have already died. The other species seem to be doing ok. I didn't bring it up to the dealer I got them from, I didn't really see a point as he doesn't have any more of the ghosts or the boxers and I'm not unsatisfied with the transaction as a whole. I just don't want to lose more if I end up ordering them again.

 

[myrmecophile]

You should still let him know. It doesn't sound like an issue at your end. I think it was the shipping that did them in.