Miomantis paykullii

Egyptian Mantis ( Miomantis paykullii )

The Egyptian Mantis ( Miomantis paykullii ) or Pharaomantis is a mantis in the family Mantidae, subfamily Miomantinae.

Features

Males reach a body length of 35 mm, a female of 45 millimeters. The basic color of the Egyptian mantis is green, but there are also copies with a beige and brown staining.

Similar Species

The Egyptian Mantis resembles some type species of mantis, about the Ghana Mantis ( Sphodromantis lineola ) or the European mantis ( Mantis religiosa) which, however, with just over 80 millimeters are significantly larger than the Egyptian Mantis.

Occurrence

The Egyptian mantis lives in Africa in the countries of Egypt, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, Kenya, Mozambique, Niger, Chad, Uganda and Senegal. There they lived shrubs, bushes and grasses in rather dry steppes.

Way of life

Females of the Egyptian Mantis have a life of 8 months. You need 7 molts for this life cycle. Males are 6 months old and roam 6 molts.

Copulation takes 2 to 5 hours. Then about 10 oothecae be in 7 days after mating, stored, which hatch 20 to 50 larvae. Since they are very small, they feed on insects rather small, about springtails. Fruit flies are already among the largest prey.

Imagos feed on flies, firebrat, as the larvae and springtails and small or not fully grown, long and short- horned crickets.

The Egyptian mantis is well camouflaged in their habitat and is hard to spot on grasses on which they are lurking.

Taxonomy

The species was described in 1871 by Carl Stål. The Artepithet paykulii was chosen in honor of the Swedish naturalist Gustaf of Paykull. Within the subfamily Miomantinae it is counted for tribes Miomantini which includes nine genera. The second tribe of Miomantinae are the Rivetinini with 18 genera.