It looks over its shoulder
It can turn its head through half a circle to watch you, which hardly any other insect can.
Minibeasts · Time every day
Praying mantis
Insect · kept kinds come from Africa and Asia
A slender green insect with a triangular head, big eyes and spiny front legs folded as if in prayer.
- Size
- 5 to 10cm long
- Lives for
- About a year
- Suits
- Older children and adults who like to watch a hunter
Stalks after you, swaying. Move your pointer and see.
Good to know
Six things about the praying mantis
Faster than a blink
Its front legs shoot out and snap shut on a fly in less than a tenth of a second.
Five eyes
Two big ones for judging distance, and three tiny ones between them for sensing light.
It sways on purpose
It rocks as it walks so that prey takes it for a leaf in the breeze.
One per tank
Mantises eat each other. Each needs a home of its own.
It hangs to shed
It sheds its skin hanging upside down, so the tank must be at least three times as tall as the mantis.
The real thing
Photos of the praying mantis
_Nyamebe_Bepo.jpg){kind=link}
_green_female_Dobruja.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
Looking after one
Keep one in a tall, ventilated tank with twigs to climb, at warm room temperature, sprayed lightly every day or two. Feed live flies or small crickets.
Before you get one
A mantis lives for only about a year, but it is alert and tame, and will watch you back.
Keep going