Purple Praying Mantis
Now here is something you don’t see every day! Big thanks again to Timothy Pollard for yet another photo from Banora Point, NSW, Australia.
Tim writes simply, “This is the biggest praying mantis I’ve ever seen.” I have no idea of the scale of the brickwork, but if he lives in Australia and it’s the biggest he’s ever seen, then about all I really feel confident in saying is that it’s less than a meter long. Well, probably less than a meter long.
This photo actually caused me quite a bit of consternation. I have been completely unable to turn up any details or images of praying mantises anywhere in the world that possess this coloration. I asked the kind entomologists over at BugGuide and their reaction was “Are you sure this wasn’t photoshopped?” Well, I guess I have to say I don’t know for sure. I believe, however, that Tim sent this to me in good faith and therefore unedited.
I am not an entomologist. I can’t really even claim to be an amateur one because the real entomologists know lots of crazy stuff about bugs that I can’t even begin to understand, like what an elytrum¹ is or why the anal region of a fly wing is not part of its butt. Having completely established my lack of credibility, then, let me advance my own theory: I believe this mantis is infected with either a fungus or–and this is more likely given the uniformity of the coloration–an iridovirus.
Here in the U.S., woodlice catch iridovirii that can turn them spectacular shades of blue and purple. Check out the first pill bug posted on this page over at whatsthatbug.com–that is NOT a normal color for that bug!
So, what’s your theory on this mantis? Do we have any readers in New South Wales that can chime in and tell us if this is actually a common color for mantids out there?
¹ If you said “One elytrum piece is worth 10 silver pieces, and two elytrum pieces are worth one gold piece²” you are on the wrong website.
² For the rest of you, that’s from the AD&D Player’s Handbook, 1st Edition, page 36.³
³ I am not a rules lawyer†.
† I was acquitted on my third appeal.
Slowly getting the site back onto an even keel. It's nice to get back into the old posting rhythm.
tceisele said,
November 26, 2007 @ 12:47 pm
Well, regarding the color, I seem to recall that a lot of the Blue Gum eucalyptus in Australia had leaves and bark more or less that color, and it would probably be pretty decently camouflaged in those trees. So, that *might* actually be its natural coloration. Although that doesn’t explain why nobody has put up a picture of one that was this color before.
AJ said,
November 26, 2007 @ 1:07 pm
It ran afoul of some punks with a can of spray paint?
I hope that it’s a natural coloring and not the result of some illness, because it’s really quite beautiful. I love the coloring and patterning of the wings.
David Brady said,
November 26, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
tceisele: Thanks for the tree link! Interesting food for thought. (Oh, and I finally addded your Backyard Arthropod Project site to the blogroll. Sorry I took so long getting a clue!)
AJ: Me too. Upon further review of the picture, though, I notice that her legs tinge almost to green down by the feet. This could still be natural color but this would certainly be consistent with a spreading discoloration.
tceisele said,
November 26, 2007 @ 3:19 pm
Well, this is odd - this site claims to be selling “color changing praying mantis isnects”(sic), which supposedly can change colors to “turqoise, orange, green/red, tan with purple and sometimes black”. The page claims that they are Stagmomantis californica, but Bug Guide doesn’t say anything about that species having the ability to change color. Either its color changing ability is not widely known, or this page is some sort of scam. Bug Guide does have this pretty blue Stagmomantis carolina nymph, which is almost purple, so there is at least some mention of mantids with striking colors. Maybe Tim’s purple mantis is an odd color phase, like the shocking pink katydids
And thanks for the blogroll link to my web page!
Psionik said,
November 27, 2007 @ 5:08 am
A few caveats before I start: I live in Queensland, not New South Wales, so I can’t speak to whether it is a common colour there. Also, I’m not a bricklayer, but I can feel pretty confident in my next two statements.
1) I have seen a fair few mantids, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a couple that resemble that, (a couple of species of trees down here look like that) although not of that size. Which brings me to:
2) Bricks laid like that are (IIRC, please correct me, someone, if I’m wrong) usually approximately either thirty centimeters long, that’s about a foot to you guys, or around three centimeters long, which is a bit over an inch. Somehow I doubt an inch-long mantis is the biggest he’s ever seen, so that would suggest the foot-long bricks, which makes that mantis bloody HUGE!
To give an idea of the scale of some bugs down here, a few years ago I caught a moth whose *body*, not counting the wings, was somewhere between 15-20cm long. Sorry I can’t be more specific, but it’s been a while. I took it to my High School Biology teacher, who had no idea what species it was. I then took it to a uni near where I lived, checked with one of their resident entomologists, and she had no idea either. That was a staggeringly large bug.
David Brady said,
November 27, 2007 @ 10:42 am
Hiyas Psionik! Thanks for the comment.
Okay, if those bricks are 15cm by 30cm, that puts the mantis around 16-18cm long. That’s half again the size of the largest mantises we get out here, which to me means it’s believable. You read stories about mantises taking small mice… this is the size of mantis that could do it.
Yay on the coloration possibly being natural. That makes this one seriously awesome bug.
Ed Longstreth said,
November 27, 2007 @ 4:39 pm
When I was a small child in NSW, I had a pet mantis that I remember being about that size. Of course, I was smaller then… She was green along her underside and flanks, but the top of her thorax and abdomen, as well as her wing covers, were a mixture of green and the grayish-purple shown in the picture. Her actual wings, which were too small for flight, were a vivid monstrous purple. She showed them off whenever she was pissed–I still have the scar. This was down in Sydney, though, whereas Banora Point is practically in Queensland, but I expect the two insects are related. She may have been flightless, but the male that showed up on the porch one morning looking for her was as sprightly as a housefly!
Dragoness said,
November 28, 2007 @ 7:57 am
Well, I don’t know if this mantis has this or not, but I’ve seen several beetles that have sort of a whitish-blue “powder coating” that kind of resembles the look this mantis has. In the right light, it can make them look blue or purplish even though the coating is white technically and the color underneath is something else. Perhaps that’s why this mantis looks so purple even though it has been claimed there is no species of genuinely purple mantis?
Just speculation…
Tim Pollard said,
December 15, 2007 @ 8:02 pm
I’ve been out of state [in Tasmania] so I haven’t been able to comment.
Alright, now that I’ve finished making excuses.
I didn’t modify the image, but I have no idea whether that is it’s natural colouration or not. I don’t remember seeing any other praying mantises with similar colouration before, but I do remember that the colouration seemed unusual when I first saw it.
I just went out and measured the tiles [bricks] that the praying mantis was on and they are about 22.5×11cm.
PS. for any one that’s interested I gave David Brady the wrong URL for my web page, it should have been http://bur.st/~timp/.
Sarah said,
August 4, 2008 @ 5:07 am
I thought I had a purple praying mantis in my garden but it does not look like this… Please can someone help me to post its picture on this page as I am new to this site.
Email me at: sarah_piano_girl
(hotmail.com)
[Edit: email address scrambled a bit to prevent spambots scraping it. -- David]
David Brady said,
August 4, 2008 @ 10:41 am
Hi Sarah!
I have sent you an email with this information, but for everybody else: feel free to email images directly to me here. The email address is on the “about” page (I would post it here but don’t want it to get scraped by spambots).
Sarah said,
August 5, 2008 @ 9:02 am
Thank you so much David… The pictures have been sent by me via e-mail. I really appreciate your quick response. Also I thank you for protecting my e-mail (was a little careless) =)