A praying mantid. He lives in a glass terrarium. We feed him flies every day that’s sunny enough to catch flies. We have fed him mosquitoes, European blowflies, brown blowflies, blue blowflies and the little black ones.

Interestingly, his eyes go black at night sometimes, and he goes head down underneath a branch at night.

He catches flies with striking speed, lashing his front legs at them and then pulling them in and then devouring them. And sometimes he is still finishing off one fly, another one comes by, he drops part of the other fly and goes on to get the one that goes past. He grooms himself by wiping his forelegs over his head and ‘licking’ them.

Ootheca

You can find ootheca at North side, sunny places on tree trunks, fences and on rocks. Praying mantids lay their eggs starting in Autumn (which is February here in New Zealand) to close to the onset of winter.

We found lots of our information here, and here.

If an ootheca is not hatched, all of its orifices (holes) should be whited out. If the ootheca has hatched all the orifices should be completely free of white stuff.