Ghost Mantis

The ghost mantis is the best starter mantis if you want something thats easy but that the same time looks unbelievable! This is the most exotic mantis that is easy to care for. They can mimic a dead leaf or a live one! A really cool feature about the mantis is that they adapt to whatever environment they are in. Although they cant change color as you’re looking that them, all mantises molt or shed their skin to grow. Particularly with ghost mantises, they do this in a fashion. For example, ghost mantises are from Africa so it is mostly dry and no vegetation and all the plants are dead. In this situation, the ghost mantis will become brown or even black to blend in to all of the sticks so it does not get eaten. But let’s say that the rainy season comes and the plants are flourishing, green, and the air is moist. So in this situation, the ghost mantis will be green to blend in with the green vegetation so of course, it does not get eaten. So that means if you spray them a lot and put fake green leafs in with them, they will be green or vice versa. Deep color changes only happen with females. Males can either be a dark brown or light brown.

Like I said in the beginning of the first paragraph, yes, these are one of the best starter mantises. They even have a little leafy structure on top of their head! This is called the crown. Males or this species have a skinny crown where as females have a big thick one. Males of this species can fly. This is so with mostly every species of male mantis. There are two different kinds of ghost mantis. Phyllocrania paradoxa and Phyllocrania illudens. This species that I am selling is paradoxa. There also is the giant ghost mantis (Phyllothelys werneri) but that is not the Phyllocrania genius. Males of Phyllocrania paradoxa or the species I am selling, have a small thin shield but the females have a triangular thick sharp one.

This picture is of a dark brown sub adult male or in other words, it has to molt one more time to be an adult and get wings. You can see the narrow crown and the thin shield.

This picture is of an adult female. You can see her wide crown and her thick triangular shield.