Praying mantis
The mantises or Mantodea is an order of insects that comprises thousands of species. Adult Praying mantids may eat large moths such as Fruit-piercing mohts. The female Praying mantis lays a few hundred eggs in a cluster (ootheca) attached to an object like a branch or trunk. Large species of mantids may have a length of up to 12 cm. Their colour is usually adaptedto the environment they naturally live in. They have about 2 generations per year. Young mantids look like adults, but don't have wings. Adult females often have no wings either, or reduced wings.
Praying mantids may also catch and eat fruit flies. Praying mantids are opportunist predators and do not farm any insects or other bugs. Particularly young mantids may not yet be too large to prey on fruit flies (tephredids). The younger and/or smaller the praying mantids are, the smaller the insects (and any other living creature they may catch) they prey on. Praying mantid nymphs initially feed on aphids and fruit flies (drosophila), and as they grow, they skip to larger preys, such as tephritids, and eventually moths and even much bigger preys.
Weevils are also predated on by Praying mantids, which may eat anything they can catch. Adults readily mate in captivity and have one generation per season. Rearing mantids requires rearing of other insects, such as aphids and drosophilae (for nymphs), tephritids (for young mantids) and moths (for adult mantids) in large quantities. Females lay their eggs in a sticky cluster of several cm long. Nymphs (very tiny praying mantids) emerge from eggs. The developing nymphs need to be separated and fed aphids/drosophilae, or they will become cannibalistic.
Horsehair Worms (Nematomorpha, but mostly Chordodes) parasitize Praying mantids. The parasites may enter the host through an intermediate host with aquatic larvae (eg Diptera and Ephemeroptera) that is eaten by a mantis.[1]
