Africa stick mantis
family Mantidae Burmeister, 1838
subfamily Vatinae Saussure, 1893
Tribe Danuriini
genus Popa Stål, 1856:169
species Popa spurca Stål, 1856
This species is commonly called a stick mantis, originally from Africa, so it is also called Africa stick mantis. It is also named stick
mantis because of the behavior of this species mimicking a stick especially when they are being observed. This is the second time I
am keeping Popa sp. The first time I come in contact with this type of mantis was back in 2005/6. It was in a period where I only keep
mantis for one generation. I have the chance to receive an egg cage of this species few months ago and it hatched out handsomely.
The little nymphs grow up quickly with plenty of food, mainly wild D. melanogaster. I keep them in a net cage with some raffia and fake
leaves so they have plenty of footing and place to wonder around beside the net screen around the cage. All the nymphs are doing well
under temperature/humidity of around 80-85F/50%. They do not appear to be very aggressive but will still eat each other when food is
limited. On the scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the most cannibalistic), I would put this species at 6.
Females starting to show size dominance over the males around 5th instar, which is probably the best time to separate the mantis
base on gender to avoid further cannibalism.
Both males and females appear to molt 7 times before fully matured. Male has wings extended to the tip of the abdomen while female
only has wing cover half of the abdomen. Ocassionally, there are some nymphs that appear to remain on certain instar stage for a
period of time so the ‘slow’ grower is comically smaller than its own siblings. About 10% of my nymphs show this peculiar trait. The
smaller ones are 100% healthy, just slow.
Breeding was easy as the male will mount the female as soon as he sees her. Mating usually only takes about one hour. Cannibalism
during mating has not happened to me so far.
Ootheca of this species is usually about three quarter inch but the first ootheca could reach an inch easily when the female is well fed.
The ootheca looks like a miniature rectangular loaf of bread and blend in well with the stick.
Here is the signature pose of the Africa stick mantis.
