Texas Unicorn Mantid, Phyllovates chlorophaea

[Wade Harrell]

Hi all!

What do you know, I actually took a picture of something!

Texas Unicorn Mantid, Phyllovates chlorophaea




Nifty native mantid. Despite the common name used in the hobby, most of the range is in Mexico but it occurs in a small part of southern Texas.

I have two ootheca so far...

Wade

[Rhys Brigida]

Pretty tall. A bean pole with a food chopper at the tippy top!

[Celeste]

Very cool, Wade! I love natural unicorns!

[tunedbeat]

I love preying mantis, how big do these get?

[DFW Tfan]

That is a fascinating creature. Thank you for sharing it's exotic beauty.

[Scott Land]

Cool picture and mantis!
Is there a known reason for the "horn"?

[Wade Harrell]

These get about 2.5 inches or so. I assume the horn just helps break up the outline and makes the mantid harder to spot. A number of mantids have projections on their heads, some of the exotic species have really elaborate ones that look like dead leaves.

Wade

[Steve-o]

Those are so cool, Id love to have one. How common are they in your area? We only get 2-3 genus/species up here, Im bored with them already. lol How are they with people, are they typical, or do they attack/defend easily?

[Wade Harrell]

They don't occur here, she came from a breeder in Texas. They are primarily predators of flying insects, and prefer flies, moths etc as prey, although they will usually take cockroaches of forcepts. They don't seem to like large prey.

This DOES have an advantage. Because they generally won't take prey their own size, this is one of the very few mantid species where nymphs can be reared communally!

They also have a neat defensive response where the forlimbs are raised and the wings lifted to reveal the lobed and banded abdomen.

Wade

[critterguy]

How big of prey are they willing to attack? And what kind of humidity/ventilation do they need? I hear they range down to panama. Maybe make good tankmates for some treefrogs slightly larger than them.