Devil's Mare

• Unlike most European mantises, which overwinter as an ootheca, this one overwinters as a nymph, clinging to the vegetation with its activity almost at a standstill.
• The males' conspicuous feathery antennae let them locate females by their pheromone from a long way off.
• Its outline, with the curved body and the crown on its head, makes it unmistakable among the mantises of south-eastern Europe.
• It is the sister species of the conehead mantis and very similar to it, with the same cephalic horn and the same feathery antennae in the male.
• Like it, it overwinters as a nymph and can be found active in the cold months of the eastern Mediterranean.
• Its camouflage combines form and behaviour: the body imitates a dry stalk and the rhythmic swaying completes the effect.
• It is told apart from Empusa pennata above all by details of the cephalic horn and the colouring, and by its more easterly distribution.
• It is a strict ambush hunter: it does not pursue, it waits.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Dry scrub and sunny grassland of the Balkans and the Middle East

Sources consulted: Battiston et al., Mantids of the Euro-Mediterranean Area; Ehrmann, Mantodea der Welt