The peacock mantis (pseudempusa pinnapavonis) is a thrilling mantis when mature and readily prepared to show its colourful, intimidating wings when threatened. This mantis is great for beginners (albeit skittish when a nymph) and uses its camouflage to resemble sticks and twigs and stay hidden. In the wild, peacock praying mantises can be found in Thailand but is captive bred in the invertebrate pet trade. You can really see where this mantid gets its name from when adults show their defensive display to offend predators by revealing their wings resembling that of a peacock’s display. I rate the peacock mantis highly as an easy to keep and breed species – comparable to the giant asian mantis (hierodula membranacea) in many ways. So how do you keep these remarkable insects?
Peacock mantises are active hunters and will decimate anything that fits (or doesn’t fit) in its mouth, similarly to the ravenous giant asian mantis. They will consume anything from crickets and fruit flies when young to houseflies and dubia roaches (and larger crickets) when older. The humidity can be kept between 50 – 70%, it must be sufficient enough to allow the mantis to molt correctly. These humidity conditions can be achieved by spraying the enclosure which also functions to hydrate the mantis.
Adult females reach 4 inches and thus require an enclosure three times their length in height (around 20 cm in width x 20 cm in length x 30 cm in height) – this can be a simple container or a fancy, glass tank. You can decorate the enclosure with sticks, fake or living foliage and use a variety of substrates. But, you could just have sticks or fake foliage and wet cotton for humidity. You must include a mesh lid for the mantis to hang upside down and molt. Nymphs require a 32 oz (2 pint) deli cup for housing which nymphs can simply navigate to find food. A mesh lid is also needed or a lid they can hang from. Multiple nymphs cannot be kept together as cannibalism is as apparent as it is in the giant asian mantis in this species – they are both infinitely hungry!
You can sex your peacock mantis by counting the abdominal segments like other species of mantis – 6 for a female and 7-8 for a male. Mating is fairly easy in pseudempusa pinnapavonis, but the female must be fattened prior to the introduction to reduce the chance of sexual cannibalism from occurring. The male will be introduced and mount the female quickly to avoid ending up in her raptors. After copulation, the male will dismount – remove him now into his enclosure. The female will create an ootheca which can hold up to 200 young.