ISSN 1364-3193

Mantis Study Group Newsletter 12

May 1999

Newsletter Editor
Phil Bragg
8 The Lane
Awsworth
Nottingham
NG16 2QP

Membership Secretary
Paul Taylor
24 Forge Road
Shustoke
Coleshill

Birmingham B46 2AU

Editorial

Again, many thanks to Andy Lasebny for his large
contribution to the newsletter. It is time for everyone else
to start writing articles for the next issue! The next issue
should be out in early August; however, this assumes that
it is ready for printing in mid July, a delay of a day or two
could mean it may not be out until mid or late September
because of clashes with holidays. You have been warned!

Exhibitions

Dates to note are:

Saturday 10th July 1999 and Sunday 21st November 1999.

West of England Creepy Crawly Show, Newton Abbot racecourse, Devon.

Sunday 16th May 1999.

British Tarantula Society Show, Wood Green High School, Wood Green Road,
Wenesbury, West Midlands (2 minutes from J9 of the M6). Open 1030-1630.

6th June 1999.

Oldham Creepy Crawly Show, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Oldham. Open 1200-1700.
Adults £1.00 children free. We have not booked a table for this, if anyone wants to run a
stand for the MSG at this event please contact me for more details.

Message from the Livestock co-ordinator — Jo Wheat.

I wish to say a special thank you to all who have returned your forms to me stating what you
have available in the way of our special friends, the mantids.

I would just like to say that the role of the Livestock Co-ordinator is to put people in
touch with others who may have surplus stock, oothecae etc. If someone contacts me stating
that they require a certain species, I am more likely to be able to help if I know what is
available at that time. Obviously it is an ever-changing situation due to the short lives of
mantids. By returning these forms, and keeping me up-dated regularly on what you have
available, I am able to set up a database which will hopefully help me to assist everyone
expediently and accurately.

Some members have suggested that we print in the Newsletter what is available. This
is a good idea in theory, but in practice it would not work. Due to lead times of publishing,
by the time the Newsletter was printed the information would be out-of-date.

MSG Newsletter, 12: 1

Fiction for the Mantis fancier! — Murray Eiland.

Trouble in Bugland: A collection of Inspector Mantis Mysteries by William Kozwinkle and
illustrated by Joe Servello. Published by David R. Godine, Boston, USA (1983), 152 pages.

While searching in the library for references pertaining to mantids, I happened to come
across this book which I checked out in an effort to be thorough. Although I realised that
the book was designed for children, I was quickly impressed by the many excellent
illustrations. Almost every other page bore a detailed line drawing, and a quick scan through
the book shows ten wonderful colour plates. A summary in the beginning of the book aptly
describes the contents: "A quick witted sleuth, patterned after Sherlock Holmes, displays his
brilliant powers of deduction by solving five mysteries." The illustrations fit this theme,
portraying a romanticised Victorian London populated by various insects in period dress. Not
only do the drawings convey great imagination, but also an appreciation of the natural world.

The last story, the "Case of the Emperor’s Crown" should appeal particularly to
members of the MSG and the Phasmid Study Group, as Orthopteroid orders are well
illustrated by Dr Hopper (Inspector Mantis’ sidekick) and Walking Stick. I will not plunge
into details of the plot of any of the stories so that I do not ruin the experience, but I found
the book enjoyable, and I assume that it could be appreciated on many levels.

Mantids wanted — Robert Penny

Deroplatys desiccata , or Hymenopus coronatus , or Popa spurca wanted: oothecae, nymphs
of any size, or adults. Contact Robert Penny, Tel: 0161-9699010, or write to me at: 34
Arderne Road, Timperley, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA15 6HJ.

Affection in Creobroterl — Robert Penny.

Recently I have been getting my Creobroter meleagris out; when I look at him closely he
jumps on my face, my female tends not to do this. It has turned into a bit of a trick: my
family finds it quite amusing and I think it is too.

Mantis hunting in Borneo — Phil Bragg.

I spent two weeks at Easter in Borneo. Sadly I was not out collecting every night: I was
working on my book Phasmids of Borneo (ISBN 983-812-027-8) which is due out later this
year, and spent all my time in the publisher’s office in Kota Kinabalu. However, I did go
out collecting for three hours on my last night in Sabah. In addition to those found by active
searching, I found one by chance.

Returning from the office at 2230 on my second night I found a male Tenodera fasciata
(Olivier, 1792) on the wall of the house in which I was staying. It had obviously been
attracted to the lights under the car-port. This is not unusual, on previous trips I have often
found mantids attracted to house lights: almost always males. What was unusual, or so it
seemed at the time, was finding a Tenodera , a genus that I had not previously seen in Borneo.
I have since been told that they are quite common in Sabah. Most of my previous collecting
has been done in Sarawak, so it could be a species with a limited distribution.

On my last night in Sabah I went collecting along the Tambunan road, near Ulu Mayog
(E 116° 17’ N 005° 52’), a few miles outside Kota Kinabalu. Using a headtorch, I searched
the vegetation along the roadside at various intervals along a five or six mile stretch of road,

MSG Newsletter, 12: 2

stopping for 10 or 20 minutes
each time then driving on to the
next convenient stopping place.

Within a few minutes of the first
stop I found an adult female
Tenodera fasciata confirming
what I had been told about the
abundance of this species in
Sabah! She was hanging on to the
underside of a leaf of a small tree.

At the same stop I found a
penultimate instar female
Euchomenella heteroptera (de
Haan, 1842), again hanging on
the underside of a leaf. At the
next stop I was delighted to find
an adult female E. heteroptera
amongst some dried grass on the
roadside verge. Over the last ten
years I have encountered many
males of this species, probably in
excess of 40, but these two
females are only the third and
fourth that I have ever seen. The
males are often attracted to lights;
since they have a very thin, light-
weight body the males fly well,
unlike the females which are
flightless. At about the fifth stop
I found a small, slender, green
nymph which I assumed was a
first instar nymph. Subsequent
stops produced no more mantids,
however, four in three hours is
not bad, particularly since two
were adult females.

The male T. fasciata was
killed and set the following
morning; I discovered many years
ago that it is generally not worth
keeping single males alive,
particularly in the early part of a

trip. The other four mantids were brought back to the UK alive. They are all feeding and
appear to be thriving. The two adults have both laid an ootheca although both are smaller
than expected: the T. fasciata laid during my return flight, and the E. heteroptera laid on the
following day, which may explain the small sizes. The small nymph has moulted and is now
14mm long, it is feeding on fruit flies; it is probably Leptomantella sp., a common genus of
slender mantids in Borneo, reaching about 2.5cm as adults.

Female Euchomenella heteroptera.

MSG Newsletter, 12: 3

Mantis 98 - The 1998 USA mantis season (continued) — Andy Lasebny.

[Following on from Andy’s article in MSG Newsletter , 10: 5-15.]

November 6 - Tenodera angustipennis female, the one I found in August, makes her
third egg case. She is in good shape, and is still very active. The male, on the other hand,
is showing signs of aging. He eats very little, and often strikes and misses. He also drinks
a lot of water.

November 7 - Green female Mantis religiosa makes her second egg case. She is in
relatively poor shape - both tarsi on the forelegs are missing, and she does not eat well any
more.

November 8 - Sphodromantis lineola female # 1 makes her second egg case. All the
females of this species appear long overdue for another egg case, and do not eat as well as
they should. They are still relatively young, being adults for only two and a half months.
The original green female I received in April is only now beginning to deteriorate and slow
down. All this time she was an excellent eater, chasing down her prey. The other females
hardly move. I usually have to hand feed them, and they are not even finishing their
crickets. The original one could eat several in a row. The male is still alive, and eats about
twice a week, but only if hand fed, and approached from the correct angle. Otherwise, he
does not go after the crickets.

November 10 - The newer Tenodera angustipennis female has made her third egg case
in captivity. I have never seen a mantis make egg cases so frequently - less than 2 weeks
apart. She is very active and eats very well.

November 15 - An unusually warm Sunday morning, the day before was a bit above
average, but today is still warmer. At around noon, I walk into town to get newspapers. On
the way back I walk by a few gardens - one has a grasshopper in it, unusual so late in the
season. I keep walking towards the ocean, and as I walk along the street closest to the ocean,
I look at the vegetation in various gardens. In the garden of a very large old house, about
8m from the sidewalk, I see a light, dull green object on top of a dark green Japanese yew
shrub in full sun. I go up on the lawn for a closer look, and it is a mantis - it just finished
a meal, probably a wasp. I pick it up and see that it is a green female Tenodera
angustipennis - the first one of this species I ever saw in my town. I immediately take her
home. This is only one day earlier than the last mantis of the season was found last year,
only a few houses away from here. There still has not been any frost near the shore, though
some nights have come close. This is one of the lucky few survivors, who happened to be
in just the right place where there is enough food and shelter this late in the season.

November 16 - The new mantis is doing well, and eats well. However, two of the
captives have died today. One of the male Tenodera aridifolia sinensis , who was not doing
too well the past few weeks is dead This is about normal for a male of this species I guess.
The other nearly identical male is still eating well though, and shows little sign of
deterioration. The other dead one is Sphodromantis lineola female #2 - she has been sluggish
for weeks, and was long over due for an egg case. She kept eating and getting fatter, but did
not or could not make an egg case. The past week or so, she ate very little, and moved very
little. What could be going wrong here? She should have lived for many more months.
Maybe she was egg bound. I examine the abdomen, and it does not appear to be falling apart
the way the other female’s did. But when I cut it open, gray fluid comes out, along with a
very strong, unpleasant odour. I remove all the contents of the abdomen, and not a single
egg is present, just a gray, rather uniform substance and liquid. What is going on here?

MSG Newsletter, 12: 4

None of the other species appear to be affected by this. This is very similar to what
happened to the other female who died. The original green female I received in April, has
not eaten for over a week, and barely moves, so she does not have long to live either, but
this is to be expected, since she is very old and has made 10 egg cases. The other two
should have lived. None of these ever want to drink, unlike the two Tenodera species, which
drink water every time I spray some into their cage. Maybe they need more humidity? The
female who was spitting out the brown fluid and seemed to be sick, is doing better and eating
relatively well. I will see what happens with her. The female Tenodera aridifolia sinensis
makes her third egg case on this day, and this one is as large or larger as the previous two.
Finally - she attaches it to a twig instead of the lid of the cage. She is still in great shape as
well.

November 17 - The original green female Sphodromantis lineola , who has not eaten for
well over a week, suddenly became interested in food. She gradually stalked a cricket and
ate it. This seemed to give her some energy, and she began to walk around inside the cage,
after spending a week or more in exactly the same spot. Maybe she is not ready to give up
yet. She must be almost a year old by now, assuming that when I got her on April 4 she had
been an adult for at least two weeks, so she must have hatched in November 1997, assuming
it took her four months to become an adult.

November 18 - The brown female Mantis religiosa is not doing too well - she is well
overdue for another egg case, and cannot make one. She is weak, and tends to wander about
the cage, as if no twig I provide is adequate. Putting her in different size cages with different
set ups has no effect. She now seems to be having a hard time hanging in the proper upside
down position that is needed to make an egg case. She probably will not last long. The male
Sphodromantis lineola , which was a poor eater most of his adult life, has been eating better
than ever the past week. He even goes after crickets, instead of waiting for them to come
close. He will eat a small cricket nearly every day now, instead of once or twice a week.
I wonder what all this is about. The newly found Tenodera angustipennis female is very
restless tonight, trying to get out of the cage. I let her out of the cage into the room, and
give her a cricket. I let her wander around the houseplants all night, which seems to satisfy
her, and I put her back into the cage in the morning. This species appears to be the most
active of all the ones I have.

November 19 - The first two female Tenodera angustipennis that I found both made
their fourth egg cases on the same day - again. This exactly what happened on October 17
with the same two females. What is this - synchronized egg cases? These consistently make
their egg cases underneath objects - in this case the right angle where two pieces of lumber
join that make the cage, usually only a few centimetres from where a previous one was made
and I removed from there. It’s strange how the egg cases of this species are so completely
different in appearance from those of the other Tenodera species, yet the mantids themselves
look so similar that the average person would never be able to tell the difference, or even
realize that they are looking at a completely different species. These egg cases are elongated
and flattened, with a pair of lengthwise grooves, while those of T. sinensis are the more
familiar rounded shape. Sphodromantis lineola female #5, who is very plump and almost
ready to make another egg case, decides to drink a tremendous amount of water this evening.
I never saw this species drink before. Every time I give them water, they just ignore it.
This one always did as well, except today. She spent about a half an hour drinking droplets
off the metal screen mesh lid of the 55 litre terrarium she is in. Why the sudden change in
behaviour?

MSG Newsletter, 12: 5

November 21 - That mantis drank a lot again yesterday, and today she is dead. I
cannot understand what is happening to the females of this species. They all have what
appear to be similar symptoms - they get plump, and cannot or will not make an egg case,
weaken and die. This one too has the insides of the abdomen liquified, the same unpleasant
and very strong odour, and no eggs at all. This was one of two S. lineola that were not even
in the same room as all the others. They were in a 55 litre naturalistic vivarium, with
tropical plants planted directly into potting soil, and a flat piece of cork bark dividing the tank
into two parts. I do not think this is a disease, since no other species has been affected, and
the original female was also unaffected. The other individual in the tank appears to be fine -
so far. The brown female Mantis religiosa is getting weaker each day, and also cannot make
an egg case. This seems to be more of a case of egg binding, and when this one dies, I am
almost sure that I will find eggs inside. The other mantis to die on this day is the lone male
Tenodera angustipennis - but this was probably just the end of his lifespan anyway, so I am
not surprised. The three females are still in good shape, and are still very active.

November 23 - The original green female Sphodromantis lineola finally died of old age.
She just gradually faded away, and when I cut the abdomen open on this one it appeared
completely normal inside. Though I do not know much about insect anatomy, I could see
that there was some structure inside, unlike the other females who died too early. Also, there
were eggs inside this one, and no odour at all. Is there a genetic problem with the others?
Were they in-bred in captivity too long?

November 24 - The brown female Mantis religiosa is still lingering on, cannot make
an egg case, and is in very poor shape. The ends of the legs have fallen off, and a part of
the foreleg is missing. But when I gave her a cricket, she managed to eat the whole thing
when I hand fed her.

November 26 - Sphodromantis lineola female #3, who was spitting up brown fluid last
month and appeared to have recovered, is now dead. The same result - the insides of the
abdomen were all a greyish liquid, and there are no eggs. The abdomen fell apart completely
when I tried cutting it open. I can see a pattern here - the mantis becomes less and less
active, eats infrequently, and when hanging upside down from the lid of the cage, the
abdomen hangs down below the head, as if the mantis has no strength left to hold it up. All
the other individuals, including these when they were healthy, would press their abdomens
against the lid when upside down, and the head was below the abdomen at all times, even if
the mantis got really fat. I am starting to notice this behaviour gradually occurring in female
#1 as well, and I am afraid that she will not last long either. She seems uninterested in
eating, and her abdomen is starting to sag downward whenever she is in a position other than
vertical with her head up. She is also drinking a lot of water, like female If 5 was before she
died. This is all happening consistently after the second egg case - they do not seem to be
able to make the third. This also makes me wonder if any of the previous egg cases they
made will actually hatch. The last female, #6, appears to be still healthy, but who knows
what will happen in the next week or so. The male appears to be unaffected by all this so
far.

November 29 - S . lineola female #1, is now dead also, just as I thought it would
happen. But when I cut open this one’s abdomen, the results are slightly different - among
all that same greyish brown liquid, there were actually a few eggs, near the ovipositor. The
rest was all liquid. The female Tenodera aridifolia sinensis makes her 4th egg case, and
Tenodera angustipennis female from southern New Jersey makes her 5th - since October 12.
Why this individual makes them more frequently then the others is unknown. The female of

MSG Newsletter, 12: 6

this species that I found on November 15, appears to be having difficulty making an egg case.
I will just have to wait and see. Outside, it has been unusually warm the last few days, with
high temperatures in the 60’ s fahrenheit. There has not been any frost near the coast yet,
only inland. At noon, I go for a walk on this sunny day, and after less than ten minutes, I
can’t believe what I see - a brown female Tenodera aridifolia sinensis is on the doorstep of
someone’s house, trying to climb up the door on this warm day. I immediately take it,
before someone opens the door and crushes it. This one is in average condition for its age,
with both tarsi missing on the middle legs, and it is very thin. During the entire walk home
it tries to eat my finger. Who knows when was the last time it ate. I give it a cricket as
soon as I get inside, and it goes right after it. This lucky survivor had probably just crawled
out from some nearby evergreen shrubs on the south side of the house, which are about 3m
from the door. Any thoughts I had on November 3, that praying mantis season was almost
over, were completely wrong.

December 1 - A day off from work, and I go for a walk on this also warm and sunny,
but windy day. It’s 1130 and as I pass by a hotel by the beach, I see something on the white
foundation wall on the south side. As I get closer, it turns out to be a small female Mantis
religiosa - in December! I take this one and feed her. The warm weather supposed to
continue for the rest of the week, so praying mantis season 1998 is not over yet! This is by
far the latest I had ever found a live mantis outside in New Jersey. This really shows how
these mantids seldom get to live out their entire lifespans out in the wild here. Only on
unusually warm late autumns like this one, in the best most sheltered places will a few lucky
individuals actually come close to living out their actual lifespans. I can see egg cases of
Tenodera aridifolia sinensis in various parts of New Jersey, on shrubs and plants that lost
their leaves. The females who made the egg cases are long gone, once the shelter of leaves
disappeared. The lucky ones are those who were on or near evergreens. For some reason,
I never see the egg cases of the other two species. I do not know where they put them. I
suppose that further south, in Virginia and North Carolina, these species, if present there, do
get to live out their natural lifespans more frequently.

December 3 - Tenodera angustipennis female that I found on November 15 finally made
the egg case she seemed to have trouble making initially. The last Sphodromantis lineola
female’s abdomen appears to be hanging a bit low when she is upside down on the lid of the
cage. I hope this is not a sign of problems that may surface as they did in the other females.

December 4 - The first Tenodera angustipennis female I found in August made her fifth
egg case. The one I found in October in southern New Jersey is spitting up dark brown fluid
- I do not know why this sudden problem when she was so healthy and active. This may
mean her days are now numbered.

December 6 - The last remaining Sphodromantis lineola female dies, just as I suspected
she would, all with the same symptoms. This must be some sort of genetic problem, since
only these were affected. It’s the same pattern - unable to make the third egg case. As far
as the fertility of the previous egg cases is concerned, I just heard from a Mantis Study Group
member to whom I had given one of these egg cases, and it did hatch. The male is still fine.

December 7 - The female Tenodera angustipennis that was spitting up fluid is now
dead. She seemed to be ready to make another egg case, and died after deteriorating rapidly.
When I cut open the abdomen, I was amazed to find a situation similar to the problem I had
with the Sphodromantis lineola females. There was a dark gray fluid inside, with less
structure than normally would occur inside, but not as completely liquid as in the other
species. But at least this one got to live out a relatively normal lifespan for this species, and

MSG Newsletter, 12: 7

got to make a lot more egg cases then the other, supposedly longer lived species.

December 9 - One of the two male Mantis religiosa is dead, without any warning, just
like last year. I guess these just die of old age very suddenly, instead of deteriorating
gradually.

December 10 - The new female Mantis religiosa I found on December 1 made a small
egg case. The night before was cold, with some frost, in sharp contrast to the record
breaking high temperatures that occurred up until the 8th. It was 23°C on the 7th, now it is
around 8-12°C as a high, with 0-3°C at night. There are few if any mantids left outside,
though there maybe some in sheltered areas, who knows. It depends on whether or not they
can get food during the late morning or early afternoon - there are very few suitable insects
flying around now. I doubt that the last mantis I found would have had the chance to make
that last egg case on this day if I had not brought her inside and been feeding her daily. The
Tenodera angustipennis female I found in August died suddenly. She gave very little warning
- just ignored all food for a day, and was dead the next. This one was active and in good
shape right up to the end, with little sign of any deterioration like many individuals have.

December 12 - The Mantis religiosa female I found on December 1 dies suddenly.

December 13 - The female Tenodera aridifolia sinensis I found on November 29 makes
a small egg case.

December 16 - The female Tenodera aridifolia sinensis I found on November 29 is now
dead, with very little warning, though she was not in the best shape when I found her. She
got a few more weeks than she would have got out there anyway. There are still a male and
a female of this species left, both in reasonably good shape for their age.

December 19 - The remaining female Tenodera aridifolia sinensis makes her 5 th egg
case. I never had this species make so many. Usually it is only 3, and only occasionally 4
egg cases, never 5.

December 20 - The remaining Tenodera angustipennis makes another egg case, the
second in captivity, since I found her on November 15. The female Mantis religiosa is dead,
after eating very poorly and deteriorating the past month. The past 2 weeks she would eat
very little, if at all, dropping the cricket after only a bite or two. If I gave it back to her, she
would also only take another bite and drop it.

December 25 - The male Mantis religiosa is dead this morning. He did live longer than
the 5 males I had last year.

January 3, 1999 - The male and female Tenodera aridifolia sinensis made it into the
new year, as well as the female Tenodera angustipennis , which made a very small egg case
today. This one is in very poor physical condition, with wings faded and tattered and tom,
and legs not functioning too well. But alertness and feeding ability is still somewhat good.
The male Sphodromantis lineola is also still alive, but he does not complete his meals any
more.

January 6 - Both Tenodera females are now dead, quite suddenly, with little warning,
other than being weak and sluggish the past 2 days. The male Tenodera aridifolia sinensis
is still alive, but he does not have long either.

January 11 - The male Tenodera aridifolia sinensis finally dies. This is the longest
lived male of this species I ever had. The Sphodromantis lineola male is still here, but he
is drinking tremendous amounts of water, which means he may not last too much longer. It
appears that mantids drink much more water toward the end of their lifespan than when they
are younger.

February 1 - That S . lineola male is still hanging on. He has deteriorated greatly in the

MSG Newsletter, 12: 8

past week. He cannot hold onto the branches well any more, since the tarsi have broken of :
or are dry and brittle. The only way to get him to eat for the past 2 weeks is to tie a cricket
to a thread, approach him at just the proper angle and distance, and allow him to strike
several times. If I would leave the cricket running around in the cage he would never catch
it, since it takes several awkward strikes to catch it when tied to a thread. He did complete
today’s meal, however.

February 15 - He finally dies after lingering on for so long. Most males of most
species I had did not deteriorate this gradually. Often they either died of old age without
showing noticeable signs that they are about to die, or no more than a day or two of
symptoms. Females seem more likely to gradually fade away for as long as a month. This
male lasted a very long time after the initial signs of old age were beginning. I hand fed him
his last meal on the 12th, and he did not take food any more the net day. He lived almost
10 months, and was an adult for 6 months.

Conclusion

This year, praying mantis season in New Jersey was typical of what happens most years, in
that there are more Tenodera aridifolia sinensis sightings than that of Mantis religiosa, and
this year the larger of the two species became adults in the wild right on time or a bit early.
The only thing different was the appearance of the other New Jersey species, Tenodera
angustipennis, a species I had not seen for quite a few years. The most unusual occurrence
was finding live mantids in the wild up until the end of November and beginning of
December. A few almost lived out their maximum lifespan in the wild. I have lived near
the coast only since 1995, so I do not know, maybe this happens frequently in this part of
New Jersey. I never even saw mantids in early November up north. The addition of the
African Sphodromantis lineola to the captive mantis collection made for an interesting
comparison, since they just happened to become adults at the same time as the New Jersey
species did in the wild. The most puzzling of all is what happened to the Sphodromantis
lineola females, all dying prematurely the same way after making the second egg case. Does
anyone know what this could be?

An Introduction to Rearing Praying Mantids

by P.E. Bragg.

An Introduction to Rearing Cockroaches

by P.E. Bragg.

Each booklet contains 16 pages and provides an introduction to housing, feeding and breeding
the insects. Includes drawings to distinguish the sexes and examples of some different species.

Prices: £2.50 each plus postage (20p UK; 70p Europe, £1.10 worldwide).
Order from: P.E. Bragg, 8 The Lane, Awsworth, Nottinghamshire, NG16 2QP, U.K.

MSG Newsletter, 12: 9

Mantis abstracts

The following are abstracts from papers published recently, or in some cases details of the
paper but without an abstract. The papers are in English unless otherwise indicated. The
editor would be grateful for copies of any recently published papers so that abstracts may be
included in this section of the newsletters.

Grandcolas, P. & Desutter-Grandcolas, L. (1998) Successful use of a deimatic display by
the praying mantid Polyspilota aeruginosa against the yellow-vented bulbul. Annales de la
Societe Entomologique de France , 34(3): 335-336.

No abstract available.

Scriber, J.M., Deering, M.D., Francke, L.N., Wehling, W.F. & Lederhouse, R.C.

(1998) Notes on swallowtail population dynamics of three Papilio species in south-central
Florida (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae). Holarctic Lepidoptera , 5(2): 53-62.

South-central Florida (Highlands County) has experienced unusually intense wetland and
wooded habitat loss due to agricultural, ranching, and developmental drainage programs since
the 1960’s. During the last 20-30 years, general declines have been observed in the numbers
of swallowtail butterflies (Papilio), with the exception of woodland and hammock preserves
such as Highlands Hammock State Park. Here we report the last 6 years of population size
estimates of Papilio glaucus, P. palamedes , and P. troilus , the most common swallowtail
butterfly species in this county. We found that the frequency of dark (mimetic) morph P.
glaucus has remained high (31-44%) for the last 10 years for all spring and fall broods
observed unlike the low proportions before the 1960’s drainage projects. In addition, we
report on lizard, spider, and mantis predation on large Papilio adults.

Yamawaki, Y. (1998) Responses to non-locomotive prey models by the praying mantis,
Tenodera angustipennis Saussure. Journal of Ethology, 16(1): 23-27.

Adult females of the praying mantis Tenodera angustipennis were presented with
computer-generated images, and the attractiveness of "non-locomotive" prey models was
examined. Mantids fixated and struck the "body and leg" model (consisting of an immobile
black square on a white background with 2 black lines oscillating randomly at its sides) more
frequently than the "leg" model (only oscillating lines) or the "body" model (static square
only). This indicates that the model consisting of a static object and moving lines effectively
elicits mantis strike behaviour, although it is "non-locomotive."

MSG Newsletter, 12: 10