Reproduction
The
praying mantis reproduces in a strange way.
The female praying mantis will bite off the male’s head and if
mating has already begun, the males will have very vigorous
movements while delivering the sperm. Although the female bites
off the males head for mating, this is the typical way of going
about feeding as well. The male attempts to engage the female in
a courtship dance in order to persuade the female to go the
mating route versus feeding. To mate after the courtship dance,
the male praying mantis will leap onto the females
back—collapsing her thorax and wing bases with his forelegs.
Once the collapsing is done, he then bends his abdomen to place
his sperm into a cavity that is located on the tip of the
female’s abdomen. The female praying mantis is able to lie
anywhere from 10 and 400 eggs which are coated in a substance
produced by glands in her abdomen. This substance will harden
and then acts as a protective coating. This protective coating
and egg together are called an ootheca. Depending on the
species, the ootheca will be placed in the ground, wrapped
around a plant, or attached to a flat surface. These are preyed
upon so sometimes the female will simply protect the ootheca
herself. The prime mating period for the praying mantis in
temperate climates begins in the fall. Like other insects in
related groups, the praying mantis goes through three stages of
metamorphosis—egg, nymph, and adult. The egg, which was
previously described, differs from the nymph and the adult. The
nymph and the adult are very similar with only a few exceptions.
The nymph does not have wings or functional genitalia and is
smaller in size compared to the adult. The nymph also is usually
a different color than the adult, also. Although the nymph is
smaller in size, it grows over time and it will eventually have
a sturdy exoskeleton when necessary. Depending on the species,
the nymph can have 5-10 different molts or exoskeletons before
it is done and has wings. Once the final exoskeleton is gone and
the wings appear, the so called nymph is now an adult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mantis_religiosa_(egg_case).jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mantis_religiosa_couple.JPG
Generally, the life span for a praying mantis is not very long.
For some species, specifically tropical species, the life span
is about 10-12 months. If a praying mantis is kept in a lab and
lives that way, he or she may be able to live an extra two
months or so but not very much longer than that. Also, many of
the female praying mantises that live in colder climates will
not survive the winters. It is very common for a lot of the
females to die during the colder weather along with any
surviving males.