Mantids are ambush predators, the hunting cats of the insect world that sit and wait, surveying their surroundings for a potential meal. Their camouflage disguises resembling leaves and sticks are the perfect adaptation to hunting in the garden verge. Huge compound eyes contain 10,000 light receptors in each one constructed with two lenses and are capable of seeing images and colors. Mantids have an elongated thorax that functions like a neck, enabling the triangular head to turn almost 360 degrees.
As generalist predators they attack and seize their unwary insect (and sometimes other small arthropods) prey with raptor-like front legs armed with spines to pin their quarry while their powerful mandible mouthparts devour it. As a large predatory insect they eat any meal they can catch, beneficial or otherwise, however mantids do not bite humans.
Females are known to kill and consume males after or during mating, perhaps for an extra caloric energy boost before laying eggs. Females are able to produce more eggs after this large meal and the males die soon after mating regardless.
Three species of mantids are found in North Carolina. Both the European mantid (Mantis religiosa) and Chinese mantid (Tenodera sinensis) were introduced into the United States in the late 1800s. The Carolina mantid (Stagmomantis carolina) is
