Invertebrates

Mantis

Mantodea · also called praying mantis, mantises

Not Evaluated carnivore Temperate grassland Temperate forest Rainforest

A mantis is an insect built entirely around ambush. It sits motionless, disguised as a leaf or a twig or a flower, and watches with two forward-facing eyes that judge distance the way ours do — the only insect that can. When something edible comes within reach, two spined front legs snap shut around it in a fiftieth of a second, and the mantis starts eating, usually head first.

Overview

Mantises are the order Mantodea, around 2,400 species, on every continent except Antarctica and most diverse in the tropics. They are ambush carnivores with folded, spined raptorial forelegs, a triangular swivelling head, and, in most, excellent camouflage. Prey is other insects, and in the biggest species also lizards, frogs, hummingbirds, and mice.

Senses

A mantis can turn its head nearly 180 degrees each way — it can look over its shoulder — and its two large forward-facing eyes give it true stereoscopic depth perception for timing a strike. Many mantises also have a single ear tuned to bat sonar, and a flying mantis that hears a bat drops into a spiralling dive.

Disguise, and a myth

Species mimic green leaves, dead leaves, twigs, bark, lichen, grass, and ants, and the orchid mantis looks so like a flower that pollinators fly to it. As for sexual cannibalism — the female eating the male, head first — it happens in some species but is far rarer in the wild than the cramped-cage experiments suggested.

Status

Mantises as an order are Not Evaluated. Most are common where habitat allows, but many tropical forest species are poorly known narrow-range specialists vulnerable to deforestation, and striking species like the orchid mantis are collected for the pet trade.

Mantis: common questions

Why is it called a praying mantis?

Because of the resting posture of its front legs. A mantis at rest or lying in wait holds its two raptorial forelegs folded and raised close to the head, a stance that looks like a person with hands clasped in prayer, and the name mantis itself comes from a Greek word for prophet or seer. Some people jokingly call it a preying mantis instead, which is arguably more accurate, since those same folded legs are a spring-loaded trap for catching and holding live prey. Not every mantis species is called a praying mantis, but the posture is common to the whole group.

Do female mantises always eat the male?

No, and the reputation is largely an artefact of how the behaviour was first studied. In classic laboratory experiments, males and females were placed together in small containers, often with the female hungry and stressed, and cannibalism was frequent. In the wild, where a male can approach cautiously, mount from behind, and leave afterward, and where the female is usually well fed, most matings do not end with the male being eaten, with field estimates ranging from around 5 to 30 per cent depending on species and conditions. Where it does happen, the meal gives the female extra nutrition that goes into her eggs, and a male that is going to mate only once anyway may gain by provisioning his own offspring.

How does a mantis catch such fast prey?

With stereoscopic vision and an extremely fast strike. A mantis fixes both of its large forward-facing eyes on a moving target and, using the slight difference between the two views, calculates the target's exact distance, the same trick human depth perception uses and unique among insects. When the prey is within range, the mantis fires its forelegs forward and shut in about 50 to 100 milliseconds, far quicker than the prey or a human observer can react, impaling and clamping the animal on the spines. The mantis then adjusts its grip and begins to feed, often while the prey is still moving.

Are praying mantises good for the garden, and are they protected?

Mantises are generalist predators that eat whatever insect they can catch, so they take pest species such as aphids, caterpillars, and flies, but also beneficial insects including bees, other mantises, and the occasional small vertebrate, which makes their net value to a garden roughly neutral rather than strongly positive. The idea that praying mantises are legally protected in the United States is a persistent myth with no basis, there has never been a federal or state law making it illegal to kill one. Egg cases of introduced species such as the Chinese mantis are sold as garden biocontrol, though their real impact on pests is limited.

Sources & further reading

Written by HideShark Editorial Team · reviewed by HideShark Science Desk. Published September 10, 2026. Last updated September 10, 2026.

Quick facts

Scientific name: Mantodea
Diet: Live prey only, mostly other insects such as flies, moths, crickets, bees, and other mantises, seized from ambush, with the largest species also taking small lizards, frogs, hummingbirds, and mice, all held in the spined forelegs and eaten alive, usually starting with the head
Two forelegs built as a folding trap: A mantis holds its raptorial front legs folded and raised, which looks like praying, and each leg has rows of sharp spines and a hooked tip so that when the leg snaps shut the prey is impaled and clamped between two spiked surfaces, a strike so fast the human eye cannot follow it
A head that turns nearly 180 degrees each way: A mantis is the only insect that can look over its own shoulder, swivelling its triangular head on a flexible neck to track movement, and its two large forward-facing compound eyes give it true stereoscopic depth perception, which it uses to judge the exact distance for a strike
One ear, tuned to bats: Many mantises have a single ear in a groove on the underside of the thorax, sensitive to the ultrasonic hunting calls of bats, and a flying mantis that hears one goes into a steep spiralling power dive to escape, a defence shared with several night-flying moths
Sexual cannibalism, sometimes: In some mantis species the female may eat the male during or after mating, beginning with his head, and a headless male can still complete mating because the movements are controlled by nerve centres in the abdomen, though in the wild cannibalism is far less common than in cramped laboratory cages, occurring in perhaps a quarter of matings or fewer
Camouflage taken to extremes: Mantises are masters of disguise, with species that mimic green leaves, dead brown leaves, twigs, bark, lichen, grass blades, and ants, and the orchid mantis of Southeast Asia has pink and white lobed legs that resemble a flower so closely that pollinating insects fly to the mantis instead of to real blooms
An egg case like hardened foam: A female mantis lays her eggs in a frothy secretion that she whips into a foam and that then hardens into a tough, insulating case called an ootheca, glued to a stem or wall, from which dozens to hundreds of tiny mantises hatch together in spring
Range: Every continent except Antarctica, and most diverse in the warm tropics and subtropics of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, in rainforest, dry forest, savanna, grassland, scrub, desert, and gardens, on foliage, flowers, tree trunks, and the ground, with only a small number of species reaching cool temperate regions.
Conservation status: Not Evaluated ≈ Not assessed as an order of around 2,400 species, and most mantises are common where suitable habitat exists, but many tropical forest species are narrow-range specialists that are poorly known and potentially vulnerable to deforestation, and several striking species, including the orchid mantis and various flower and dead-leaf mantises, are collected in some numbers for the exotic pet trade in the wild