Praying Mantids 

of Western Australia

(pronounced - 'man' 'tis' - the d is silent)

Order; Mantodea

 

When you think of Praying mantids, what comes to mind?

  For me, I think skilled hunter with large eyes.

They get their name because of the way they pose or sit while waiting for an unsuspecting insect to walk by.  They will often rock back and forth to go unnoticed looking like a twig moving in the wind. When the intended insect passes close enough to the praying mantis it shoots out its front legs and grabs it.  Some ground species also chase their prey to capture it.

 

They hold their prey and eat it alive.  Look at those spines on the front legs.

Go Here  to see our movie of the Praying Mantids eating.

 

Life Cycle

The female lays a egg capsule that looks like foam squirted out of a can.  It is usually a 
fawn colour. A couple of hundred eggs are laid into this and then its attached firmly 
to a branch or can be on the ground under logs and stones. 

    A praying mantid egg case magnified 10x

Magnified 60x - notice the reinforced shapes that give the capsule support so that it will not fall in on itself.
 

This egg case was found in the Great Victoria Desert on the Great Central Rd, WA in August.

This egg case may not be from a praying mantids.  It was seen at Wildflower Reserve (formally Blackboy Reserve) in Harvey, WA in July.

 

This egg case was seen at Brixton Street Conservation Park in August.

 

 

The young pro-nymphs come out of this sack shed an extra skin and now they are nymphs.
The young are called nymphs as they are little replicas or look-a-likes of their adults but without wings. They grow bigger with each molt or instar.
In colder weather it can take about 1 year for the nymph to develop but in more tropical regions about 6 months.
The females have reduced wings or may be wingless and don't fly.  Males can usually fly and they have two sets of wings.

Most species are green or brown but there are a few that can change colour over time.


What do Praying mantids eat?

Well as we said, any insect slow enough and small enough to catch.  Crickets would be a favourite fast food and because the cricket eats plant material the Praying Mantids gets the nutrients from the plant via the cricket.

Who eats Praying mantids?

No-one you might think.  But a parasitic wasp lays its eggs inside the egg case so that when their little darlings hatch they have dinner waiting, so the praying mantids eggs will all be eaten, and then the wasp larvae burrows out.  Some crickets will eat the praying mantids nymphs before the nymph grows up and eats them!  Ants too will eat the young nymphs.
And carnivorous marsupials would make a meal of a praying mantid.
Birds enjoy eating praying mantids although in some cases the praying mantids are able to flash colours and give off unpleasant chemical odours to deter the bird.

 

This is the underside of a praying mantids.  
You can see how the body is in segments and is an exoskeleton.

Here is a female praying mantid of the genus Paraoxypilus 
photographed in Leeming Perth Western Australia. 

 

 What's the Diff'? 

What is the difference between praying mantids and the smaller lacewings that also have the spiny front legs that pose? 

The lacewings don't get any bigger than 150mm in length. The praying mantids have a hardened wing cover over their delicate flying wings if they have any wings.  
The lacewings have 4 delicate or membranous wings and are in the Mantis fly family.

Go here to find out more about Lacewings and Antlions.

Leaf insects can look like praying mantids too but Leaf insects  are from the stick insect order and are not found naturally in Western Australia although stick insects are.

 

Can you see the insect in the front foot of this praying mantids on the right being eaten?  This was photographed at Piney Lakes in Perth WA.

This is an Orthodera ministalis from the Mantidae family.

 

Praying mantids have been known to eat their own species even as adults. 
They live all over Australia in a wide variety of habitats. 

UPDATES

 

While driving slowly around the roads at Dryandra woodlands in the Wheatbelt, this praying mantid bumped into the car. After giving itself a good clean, it was happy to be moved to the side of the road.

 

This Praying Mantid tried to take over my job as photographer in the Tanami Desert in Western Australia in August.

 

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This green and pinkish praying mantids was found in my yard in Willetton in August.

 

greenpink yard aug22backsmall.JPG (25179 bytes)

brown yard jan5backsmall.JPG (30263 bytes)

This praying matids was also seen in my garden in January on the first hot day we had for this summer.

 

This Praying Mantids was seen at Badgingarra in September

This Praying Mantids was seen in my yard Beckenham Perth in September

 

This is the same Praying Mantids from Beckenham

  

 

Here are a few Praying Mantids photographed from the Western Australian Museum in Perth.  They lose their colourings with age.  The red dot means they are found in Perth.  Click on the photographs to see them larger.

 

 

Believe it or Not

You decide if this is true or not.  Praying mantids originally got their name as
they were first discovered in a church in Southern Spain.

 

 

Assignment: How many animals can  you think of  in the world that hunt
 like the praying mantids where it rocks back and forth?  Try this for yourself. 
 Go outside and see how close you can get to a fly before it takes off, then try the
 rocking approach, can you catch the fly with your hands?  How about stalking 
a bird in your yard.  How close can you get when you creep and how close do you
 get if you move around more?  To catch different things you will need to act in
 a different way and this is why some hunters can only catch certain prey. 

Here below are some of the texts and references that we found useful.

 Here you will see praying mantids from all over the world

 

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 All photos Copyright © Rachel Martinovich 2003 unless otherwise mentioned. Contact us Wildlife Education Services 
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