What kind of mantis is it?
Body color varies by individual, from green to pinkish to various browns. The cone on the head is there from the moment it hatches.
How to identify it
- A long cone-shaped crest rises from the top of the head.
- Males have feathery, branched antennae.
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
- Tall cone-shaped crest on the head
- Males have feathery, branched antennae
- Cream body with pale green stripes and leaf-vein pattern
- Crest on the head
Versus the Egyptian flower mantis: the Egyptian flower mantis is in the same family and also overwinters as a nymph, but it has a cream body, a shorter crest on its head, and lives in desert regions.
Range
It lives in hot, dry rough grassland, perennial plants, and scrub in the western Mediterranean.
Behavior
It hatches in summer, spends the winter as a nymph, and becomes an adult the next spring. This differs from most European mantises, which overwinter as eggs.
At night the female gives off a scent (sex pheromone) to call males, and males find it with their feathery antennae.
It catches small flying insects.
Body length differs by source, so we give a range.