To learn more about orchids, their relationships with insects and orchid care, visit. Learning about orchids is a never-ending pursuit, and the field of study isn’t limited to the flowers themselves. The mantis will eat small butterflies, hoverflies, houseflies, crickets and other, similar insects, which are all attracted to the pink orchid the mantis resembles. Smaller insects will too, coming too close to the predator. Birds will overlook the sizeable insect, mistaking it for a flower. It also requires high humidity levels, ideally a relative humidity between 60 and 70 percent.īy resembling an orchid and living in the same places where an orchid would, the orchid mantis is able to hide from predators and hunt its prey. Also, of those mantises that mimic flowers, this rather impressive species actually represents the largest known. It has done very well and is now widespread throughout most of the USA and Canada. Firstly, the amazing Devil’s Flower Mantis remains one of the largest of all the roughly 2,400 known praying mantis varieties. It was accidently introduced at the turn of the 20th Century. As the name suggests, this species is not native to the North America. The mantis even likes the same weather as orchids, preferring daytime temperatures between 77 and 95° F, and needing nighttime temperatures to be at least 64° F. The most common praying mantis in Washington State is the European Mantis, Mantis religiosa. (Epiphytes are plants that grow harmlessly on other plants.) In Malaysia, the mantis is found in bushes and on trees - the same places where epiphytic orchids grow. The insect is native to Malaysia, where plenty of orchid species (including pink ones) come from. The orchid mantis doesn’t just look like an orchid, but, in many ways, it also lives like one. To insects, the mantis and surrounding flowers appear blue. Most impressive, the mantis can vary its color with certain environmental conditions, namely changes in light or temperature, so that it resembles not just an orchid in general but the specific orchids that it’s living near. Thats why praying mantises look like flowers to the UV-sensitive insects that often pollinate them. Its size is even about that or an orchid flower, with females growing to be about 2.5 inches, and adult males measuring about 1 inch. ![]() The mantis is white with pink accents, which vary from soft to bright, and its legs have lobes that make them look like the petals of an orchid. Its scientific name is Hymenopus coronatus. ![]() The orchid mantis is a species of praying mantis that models itself after a flower, specifically a pink orchid.
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