Wounded Camel Cricket

I came upon this female Camel Cricket (Diestrammena asynamora) while out "slugging" a couple of nights ago. As I posted earlier, it appears that these crickets either injure each other in fights or get wounded by predators or inadvertently stepped on by humans and pets. I don't know what happened to this cricket, but her ovipositor was severely damaged and she was "bleeding" (i.e. losing internal fluid) from that part and from under the exoskeleton on her thorax. A bit of flesh was protruding from this area, and when I pressed down on the shell with a stick, black fluid oozed out. There was a pool of that substance on the ground beneath her ovipositor. At first I thought she was dead but the body felt flexible as I prodded it and the antennae began to twitch. By the next day, she was gone, so I presume a predator carried her off.

No matter what kind of creature it is, I always find it painful to watch a living thing die.