To me they are the most amazing little creatures that I know of and I never get tired of them. I know that I have written about them before, but I think that something this amazing deserves another mention. I love showing these mantises to people and seeing the absolute amazement on their faces when they see one for the first time. My pictures make them look rather big, but in reality they are only around an inch in size, as nymphs (babies) anyway. Once adults, their abdomen flattens out with wings covering their back, at this point they are around 10cm in length and able to fly.
The spiny-flower mantis is very common to grasslands and even gardens in the greater Durban area. However, seldom seen due to their amazing camouflage. The Kenneth Stainbank Nature Reserve is my favourite place for finding and photographing them. If left undisturbed, these mantises will happily live out their entire nymph life on the same plant, to be exact, less than one square metre of that plant.
They are also able to change their colour to adapt to their surroundings as the plant that they live on changes. However, they do not adjust their colour as quickly as a chameleon does, but it can take them around two weeks to adjust if they are moved to a different colour flower. Like all other species of prey mantis, the spiny-flower mantis is carnivorous, feeding on other insects. They will often sit in the middle of flowers, or on another conspicuous perch where they take on the exact colour of their surroundings, leaving them invisible to the untrained eye, here they wait for unsuspecting insects to pay the flower a visit, then lunch is served. Do not let their tiny size and dainty looks fool you, they are able to withstand the worst storms and are powerful enough to catch and feed on the largest butterflies.
The average life span of the spiny-flower mantis is around one year. Their eggs hatch between end of December and mid February. The nymphs mature in spring, getting their adult wings, they then fly off looking for a mate, lay eggs and then die, so that the who cycle can start again.
It is mostly an old wive’s tale that says female prey mantises eat the male after mating. If this were to happen 100 per cent of the time, it would have a detrimental effect on the mantis population. It does happen, but very rarely.
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