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.

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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