What kind of mantis is it?
It lives in dry regions from the Canary Islands through North Africa and the Middle East to Pakistan. In Iran it has been found on desert plants such as camelthorn (Alhagi) and tamarisk (Tamarix).
How to identify it
- Cream to beige body with pale green stripes and a leaf-vein-like pattern.
- There's a crest on top of the head.
Size comparison
Body length runs from the head to the tip of the abdomen, using the maximum of the larger sex. The bars only show relative size, so they don't match real size on screen.
Look-alikes
- Cream body with pale green stripes and leaf-vein pattern
- Crest on the head
- Tall cone-shaped crest on the head
- Males have feathery, branched antennae
Versus the conehead mantis: the conehead mantis is in the same family and also overwinters as a nymph, but the cone on its head is much longer, and it lives in the western Mediterranean.
Range
It lives on thorn scrub and grasses in desert and semi-desert.
Behavior
When threatened, it flies off, or spreads its wings wide and raises its front legs to flash the bright colors on the inside of the front legs and on the hindwings.
It has one generation a year. Nymphs born in summer spend the winter and become adults in spring.
Fun facts
- Adults have been seen changing color from ocher brown to reddish without molting.
Ecology and range follow a 2024 paper (PeerJ); size is from care sources.