Category: Reproductive Biology

A praying mantis female deposits many eggs shortly after her mating. The eggs she lays may only be a handful or hundreds (300-400). The mother mantis covers her eggs with a thick substance that hardens rapidly to a consistency similar in texture to polystyrene using her special accessory glands. This egg case, also known as an “ootheca”, is called a ootheca. After mating once, several oothecae may be produced by a single female mantis.

Praying mantises often lay their eggs in autumn or late summer. The young then develop within the ootheca throughout the winter. The foamy egg case protects offspring from cold and predators. Tiny mantis-nymphs hatch while their eggs are still inside the eggcase.

The time it takes for the nymphs to emerge from the mouth of the ootheca depends on their environment and species. The young praying mantises are ready to hunt small invertebrates and will emerge from their protective foam case around spring or summer. They start to disperse immediately in search of food.

How to Tell If Praying Mantis Eggs have Hatched?

Praying Mantis eggs usually takes 42 to 56 days at 65-75°F daytime and 45° at night to hatch. It is rare that an egg case does not hatch. Please be patient if they haven’t already hatched.

If you wish to accelerate the hatching process, we recommend placing the egg cases (still in the bags) on top a refrigerator or another place that is warm but not too hot. You should not put them on the windowsill. Temperatures fluctuate too much.

Tip: Tiny praying nymphs may emerge from the egg shell’s narrow openings. It is impossible to tell whether the egg cases have actually been hatched unless you are able to find the tiny nymphs (1/8 inch).

What to do If you Discover the Case in your Yard?

If you discover them on your garden stakes, or other garden objects after clearing up your garden’s mess, be sure to leave them near your plants. The wooden stakes will provide shelter from predators and small insects so they can hatch quickly.

---

References and Further Reading

“Ootheca.” Amateur Entomologists’ Society, www.amentsoc.org. Accessed 15 Sept. 2014.

“Praying Mantid Care Sheet.” Amateur Entomologists’ Society, www.amentsoc.org. Accessed 15 Sept. 2014.

The life cycle of just about every insect begins with the egg stage and ends in adulthood. There are four life stages in an insect’s life cycle. If it completes all four stages of a life cycle the individual species is said to complete a metamorphosis stage. However, not every species undergoes a complete metamorphosis. There are some that has only three life stages. Praying mantis is one of them. Furthermore, the mantis doesn’t only undergo an incomplete metamorphosis—the young and adult mantises look almost entirely the same.

Praying Mantis Life Cycle Facts

The Egg Stage

• The life cycle of a mantis starts with an egg. The female produces 100 to as many as 400 eggs only few days before winter. She will deposit all eggs in a frothy liquid case one that protects the eggs not only from predators but also from extreme weather.
• The eggs are laid on a stem and the entire egg structure is called ootheca. The eggs overwinter while the female dies immediately after that.

READ: [ How Long Do Orchid Mantis Live? ]

The Nymph Stage

• As the winter is over and the spring arrives, the young mantis will crawl from inside the tiny valve-like structures to see the outside world perhaps for the first time. The young mantis will be known as nymphs.
• These nymphs are extremely hungry that sometimes they feast on one another. The baby mantis will soon find their way out to look for small insects such as fruit flies.
• The nymph stage of a praying mantis is highly susceptible to potential predators. That is why most nymphs just couldn’t reach adulthood. They will shed their exoskeletons five to six times before attaining adulthood. However young the mantis may be, it will look exactly like an adult mantis except for the fact that nymphs do not have a strong defense.

The Adult Stage

• The adulthood is the last stage for a mantis. On reaching adulthood mantises do not only make up their living pretty dominantly they become the predators of most other species. Adult mantis likely spends much of its summer time hunting and looking for arthropods.
• Now they are strong enough to take down prey as large as a bird. Hummingbirds and European robins are the most favorite mantis’ prey. Unlike nymphs, adult mantises do not have to live a miserable life anymore.
• The adult mantis molts numerous times before attaining its full size. They starve hours before they molt and mantises become highly vulnerable to predators at the time of molting because the molting continues for few hours. But when the molting completes successfully the mantis will resume its hunting activities and turn out to be stronger and more active than before.

Praying Mantis Life Cycle – Video

Praying mantis lays a minimum of 100 eggs. All these eggs are hatched at once so the parents must have greater responsibility to feed young mantises immediately right? That isn’t quite true because the female mantis dies after laying eggs. The female mantis is known to produce 100 to 200 eggs sometimes even more than that. Some of the bigger species such as Chinese mantis female can lay up to 300 eggs over a period of few weeks.

The mantis’ eggs overwinter and they are mostly hatched in April or May. All these eggs remain pretty safe inside the ootheca (a hard-shelled protective case). As the spring arrived, young mantises will begin to emerge from the eggs, all at once. One cannot observe newborn mantises unless juveniles come out of the ootheca. The reason why hatching occurs in April is because the food is abundant in spring. Young praying mantis come out of ootheca one after the other and as they manage to crawl out of the shell juveniles jump to the ground. After jumping they will look for food into the green vegetation. That’s how all baby mantises survive without even their parents nurturing them.

How Many Babies does a Praying Mantis have? – Video

The mating behavior of a praying mantis in the wild has been the subject of longstanding debate since the second half of the 19^th century yet no convincing studies came to the fore. However, lately scientists are beginning to take interest as to how mantids mate in the wild; what are the peak mating months and days, and how males and female both get together as the breeding season arrives. This article is an attempt to answer these questions.

Praying Mantis Mating Facts – How Do Praying Mantis Mate? – When Do Mantis Mate? – Time of Year & Time of Day

When Do Mantises Mature?

Adult mantis is known to mate probably in the first week of eclosion. Eclosion is a biological process in which the nymph turns into an adult. One of the females of S. carolina copulates nearly five times after reaching adulthood. Sometimes a male mantid can copulate within just 30 hours following eclosion.

Scientists believe that many mantis species are most likely to mate within 14 days following adulthood. Nonetheless, the European mantis (Mantis religiosa) female is not thought to release pheromones until she becomes 14 days old.

Therefore every species has its own maturation time but the overall conclusion is that males likely copulate earlier than the females. Studies suggest that males can copulate as early as 7 days whereas no females younger than 14 day have been observed to copulate.

Read More Do Praying Mantis Die after Laying Eggs?

When Do Praying Mantis Mate? – Mating Months

For those mantids’ population that inhabits temperate habitats the mating begins in August and ends in November. This includes mantis living in the northern California, Maryland, and Portugal. Mantis’ eggs however overwinter so they are hatched in April and June the following year.

In some parts of the world, adult mantises survive all throughout the year particularly in western Africa and Trinidad. The African mantis’ population appears to spend many months in mating.

When Do Praying Mantis Mate? – Mating Hours

Since male mantis does all the hard work such as looking for a female; following pheromones; and approaching her during daytime, it’s logical to assume that mating occurs somewhere in the daylight hours. For instance Mediterranean mantis (Iris oratoria) and Arizona mantis (Stagmomantis limbata) mounts the female around 1200 and 1800 hours. Scientists claim that these are peak mating hours for a praying mantis.

But, not all species mate at noon for there are some such as the South American dead leaf mantis (Acanthops falcata) that mate minutes after the first light of the day i.e. dawn. A few species are observed mating even in full-moon nights although it is too rare to occur. However, scientists do believe that since researchers have their own limitations that is they just can’t observe mantis mating at night that doesn’t mean all mantises are diurnal. The Mantis religiosa was once seen approaching the female after sunset.

Read More Praying Mantis Egg Sack

How Do Praying Mantises Communicate to Mate?

Worldwide, insects will communicate their intentions to the mating partner in three main signals; namely, visual, chemical, and mechanical.

Mechanical signals involve calling out their partners loudly. Mantises have been known to produce sounds by rubbing their underwings and abdomen or simply scrapping but they do this in order to display threats. Consequently it means that mantises do not mate using mechanical signals.

Chemical signals involve discharging some kind of a chemical to tempt the mating partner. The female mantids will release pheromones when she’s willing to mate. The male will find the female by following these pheromones. According to the scientists, the M. religiosa female attracts the male from as far a distance as 100 meters away. In species, where females are flightless and live a sedentary lifestyle the pheromones are going to be discharged from far off.

Mantids just don’t rely on visual signals in an attempt to look for their mating partner.

Praying Mantis Mating – video

Yes, praying mantis do lay eggs but their eggs do not resemble any bird’s or reptile’s eggs. The female mantis typically lays foamy case made up of frothy liquid encasing 100 to 200 eggs. The foamy case protects the eggs from wind and rain. Many other insects guard their eggs in pretty much the same way. For instance, moths are known to protect their eggs with their stingy hairs. Let us now study when do praying mantis eggs lay eggs and when do these eggs hatch.

When Do Praying Mantis Lay Eggs?

Just like praying mantis can mate any time during the year the female mantis lays eggs without any particular season. Nonetheless, the female mantis typically deposits eggs in spring.

When Do Praying Mantis Eggs Hatch?

Well, it generally depends on the species. The eggs of the smaller mantis take 21 to 28 days to hatch while the bigger species takes 28 to 42 days to hatch eggs. Similarly, the smaller female likely deposits 100 eggs in a single ootheca whereas the bigger female can lay as many as 200 eggs in a sack.

Read More: Do Praying Mantis Die After Laying Eggs?

All eggs in the same ootheca hatch at the same time. The mantis eggs hatch in summer because the pest insects emerge in summer. The newly hatched baby praying mantis need tiny insects to feed on. Therefore, even in summer the hatching needs a couple of weeks of warm weather.

The female mantis is clever enough to deposit eggs atop one-foot tall grass but sometimes it lays eggs on twigs. The higher is the egg from the ground, the safer it is.

What happens when the Eggs Hatch?

Soon after hatching, the baby mantis will crawl within the protective case and hangs on silken threads 2 inches below the case. Moments later, the young mantis will land on the ground and find its own way of surviving in the wild. It all happens with 60 to 120 minutes.

The ootheca doesn’t change its texture even when the hatching is about to occur. Therefore, it’s pretty hard to assess if the mantis eggs are actually hatched unless a baby mantis crawls out of the case.

Praying Mantis Eggs Hatching – video

Yes they probably do, particularly if the female produces eggs right before the frost. This behavior isn’t only observed in mantids in fact the death of a female soon after laying eggs is pretty common in the insect world. No wonder, praying mantis are pretty infamous for exhibiting some of the most bizarre behavioral adaptations. For instance, the female (though only occasionally) eats the male during mating.

Similarly the female mantis doesn’t only cannibalize her mating partner it also dies soon after laying eggs. However, this particularly behavior isn’t only limited to the praying mantis. Many bugs such as honey bees also die after producing eggs. Honey bee dies because its genitals explode.  Perhaps this is a necessary part of an insect’s life cycle. Small mantis species live around 2 to 3 months and it’s reasonable to assume that their shorter life span might be due to this behavior.

Do Praying Mantis Die After Mating? – Video