Praying Mantis Facts

(Video documentary under the summary)

– It spends hours cleaning it’s front legs. It’s main weapon. After eating their victims alive, the cleaning begins again.

– The usually hang upside down to be less noticeable.

– The male will sneak up on the female because he doesn’t want to be her meal until he has mated with her. Mating can take hours so it’s a good thing if she’s distracted by some lunch. But the male is usually devoured after mating.

– A few days later she lays her eggs on plants or in an ootheca which is made up of a frothy secretion which later hardens up.

– After laying her eggs the adult dies.

– Once a mantis nymph hatches, it becomes an L1, meaning it is in his first stage of life.

– Every so often, the nymph molts his old skin and gets a little bigger. They will become an L2, then L3, L4, and so on until they are an adult at around 8 molts depending on the gender of the mantis.

– They leave sinks behind when they hatch and these are called ‘wormskins’.

– Babies will continually shed their skin until they are adult size.

– Mantises slice their victims up, piece by piece, with their sharp mandibles.

– There are many types from ghost mantises to pigmy mantises. Some look like dried up leaves.

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