Nymph molted in front of me

As I was doing daily maintenance, one of the larger AIF nymphs run out from the pack, and started molting. It seems that he was holding it until the very last second, and just couldn’t stop the molting anymore.

I filmed his molting process and has posted on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7CM2yHOp4o

His body started to elongated about a month ago, and his abdomen had recently got inflated so much that looked like it could be exploded anytime, white parts between each sections were at all time visible in recently weeks. His body shape was like a hisser with lots of babies inside ready to give birth just before he molt. After he molted, his body shape started to change, in around 6 hours, his body shape completely moth into more closely resemble to adult shape.

He looked like one of them in this picture, actually, he’s one of them. Note the body shape is more rounded compare to adults. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photo just before he molted, his abdomen is much more inflated than in this picture, so big and bloated that I began to worry about his health!


Some pictures while he’s molting.



His body started changing shape soon after molted.


After about 18 hours, he looked like this:


He’s now about a little more half of the size of the largest male.