What kind of mantis is it?
Its long, thin green body mimics a grass stem. Its wings are short, and it appears unable to fly.
A 2024 study described it as "perhaps the only obligately parthenogenetic mantis." The researchers added the caveat "perhaps," and in 2025 a population of a close relative in Uruguay (B. subaptera) was also confirmed to reproduce with females alone, so it's hard to say for sure it's "the only one."
How to identify it
- Long, thin, bright green body.
- Short wings.
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
- Short wings
- Long, thin, bright green body
- Long, bow-shaped pronotum
- Very thin, long body like a twig
- Leaf-like lobes on the abdomen and legs
Versus the Toxodera stick mantis: the Toxodera stick mantis is also long and thin, but it's shaped like a dry brown twig and lives in Southeast Asian forests.
Range
It lives in coastal grasslands stretching about 2,400 km from East Texas to central North Carolina in the southern US. At night it's active about 30 cm above the ground.
Behavior
It reproduces from unfertilized eggs (parthenogenesis). No male has ever been found.
Fun facts
- In genetic analysis, the North American population fell within the genetic variation of the South American species B. subaptera. The researchers suggested that a single female may have arrived around the early 20th century on a ship carrying hay and then spread (still a hypothesis).