If you have considered having a praying mantis or you have one and you don’t know how to take care of it, here we are going to explain everything you need to do it.
What is a praying mantis?
The praying mantis, also called Santa Teresa, is a kind of manteodeo insect. It belongs to the Minutiae family.
It is a medium-sized insect. It measures approximately between 4 and 6 centimeters. Its body is long and it has thin and long antennae. It has two large compound eyes and, in the space between them, it has three more simple eyes. His head has the ability to rotate 180º. His front legs are held in front of his head, as if he were praying. For this reason it was given the name of praying mantis. These legs have spines that they use to catch their prey.
They tend to be rather solitary animals, except when the breeding season approaches, when they must look for a partner to mate. If it is the case that there are several males before a single female, they will fight. Whoever comes out the winner of this fight will be the one who reproduces with the female. This species is curious that it is the female who is larger than the male. In the animal kingdom, the opposite usually happens that males are larger than females. Contrary to popular belief, females only rarely eat the male during or after copulation. Although it is totally true that it happens.
It is usually green or brown, differing in different shades. It has only one ear and it is located on the thorax. Praying mantises usually last about a year.
How to take care of a praying mantis?
Next we are going to explain the main things you should know to take care of your praying mantis:
Instructions for caring for a praying mantis
- The first thing you should do is find a home for your mantis. You can keep it in a terrarium or a large container. To get it right, put some soil or substrate on the bottom and some branches. The substrate must be a material that absorbs water and, in addition, does not have mold. Sand, soil for plants, sawdust or pieces of wood will work perfectly. For your animal to be comfortable and have space, the container where it will live must measure at least three times the size of the mantis in height and twice its size in width. This way, your praying mantis will be able to wander around the site and have room to shed.
- These animals do not need to be fed every day, if you feed them every two or three days, it will be enough. Mantis usually eats insects and all kinds of invertebrates in general. The only requirement for praying mantises is that their prey be alive. We can offer you crickets, grasshoppers, ants, flies, mealworms. What you have to keep in mind is that the diet changes according to the age of the mantis. When they are small pups, they usually feed basically on drosophilas. When they are young, their diet is based on vinegar flies, aphids or small grasshoppers. There are species that are much larger and eat birds, lizards or mice. The most important thing is that watch your mantis eat. Since their food is alive, they might hide or just die. If this happens, your animal will starve. Keep looking until you see that it has caught its prey. Another option is to give him the food with tweezers and wait for him to take it directly from there. Insects that haven’t been eaten by the mantis are best removed from the container.
- Praying mantises do not need to drink directly from a container. What you can do is buy a water bottle that has a spray dispenser. Occasionally mist the mantis’ container with water spray to keep it hydrated. This is why we said that the substrate must absorb the water.
- Keep your mantis separate from others. As we have talked about before, praying mantises only get together with others when it is the breeding season. If you have several mantises it is better to keep them separate. Otherwise, they could devour each other.
- In truth, the container where you have your pet does not need to be cleaned much. As these animals are so small, they hardly generate waste. The only thing you have to do, as we said before, is remove the animals that have not been eaten. On the other hand, when you clean your praying mantis’s home, all you have to do is remove all the substrate. Then you need to clean the container with hot water. It is very important that you only use water. Don’t use special detergents or other cleaners, as any leftovers (even if you think there aren’t any) will likely harm your animal? Dry the container well and put new substrate. Don’t forget to add branches and such so that your praying mantis can hang and entertain itself.
- The breeding season for the praying mantis is summer. These types of animals have a simple metaphorophosis. This means that they do not go through the larval stage like butterflies or beetles. This means that the young are small replicas of the adults, looking very much alike. In autumn, the females lay between 10 and 400 eggs on top of a leaf, stem or stone, forming a compact structure. Praying mantis pups, called nymphs, are born in the spring. When they are born they usually eat other young people who have just been born with them. The young reach adulthood in the summer, when they can begin to reproduce.
As you have been able to read, praying mantises do not need a lot of care to live well. Finally, we leave you some tips that will be of great help:
Tips for caring for a praying mantis
- Do not use insecticide poisons on plants or branches that you are going to put inside your praying mantis’s container. These products will do a lot of damage to them and can even kill them.
- When it is night, do not take the mantis outside. It is better that you keep them inside the house, since they are not used to the cold and could die.
- When your praying mantis lays her eggs, the best thing to do is not to touch them. Since they are very fragile and could break easily.
- What is recommended is that you buy your mantis from a veterinarian or specialized pet store. If you take one directly from its natural habitat, it could become so stressed that it would die.
If you follow all these guidelines and tips, your mantis will live great. In addition, with this care, your pet could live up to a year and a half. Although they may not seem like it, these animals are truly interesting and observing them can reveal many things about them. You can interact with them a bit, but be careful, they are more fragile than they seem. Be careful when you take them out of their home to clean it. Remember to put it in a closed place while you clean the container so that it does not escape. Then put it back in its container very carefully.
