Conehead Mantis

• When it feels threatened it sways slowly from side to side, mimicking a twig moved by the wind.
• The male has large, feathery antennae and flies well; the female, being heavier, barely moves about.
• It overwinters as a nymph on the vegetation and the adults appear in spring, which sets it apart from the European mantis, an insect of late summer.
• It is one of the strangest mantises in Europe: the elongated, angular body, with a prominent horn on the head and the abdomen curved upwards, gives it the look of a broken twig.
• It spends the winter as a nymph, something exceptional among European mantises, which usually overwinter as eggs inside the ootheca. That makes it possible to see it in the middle of the Mediterranean winter.
• The male has spectacular feathery antennae, with which he detects the female's pheromones from a distance; the female's are thread-like.
• It sways. When it moves, it rocks rhythmically back and forth, a movement that mimics a branch stirred by the wind and breaks up its outline before prey and predators alike.
• It hunts by ambush with absolute stillness, sometimes for hours, moving only its head to track its prey by sight.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Dry Mediterranean scrub, cistus stands and sunny grassland

Sexual maturity

The adults appear in spring after the final moult; unlike Mantis religiosa, the female does not usually devour the male during copulation

Gestation / incubation

The nymphs hatch from the ootheca in early summer, feed through summer and autumn, enter winter diapause and complete the final moult in spring; they go through five or six moults

Litter / clutch size

The ootheca is usually fixed to very thin twigs and the eggs can remain in it for a long time

Sources consulted: Battiston et al., Mantids of the Euro-Mediterranean Area; Asociación Española de Entomología; Fauna Ibérica; Fichas naturalistas ibericas de Empusa pennata; B.E.E.S. (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona), ficha Mantis palo, con datos UICN; Asturnatura; B.E.E.S. (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona); fichas naturalistas ibericas; Asturnatura, ficha Empusa pennata

Best time: Spring, when the overwintering nymphs reach adulthood