On July 24th, 2006, my school bus had broken down and another bus picked us up. It was at that point that I looked down on the floor and found an off-white colored praying mantis. It's about two and a half inches long and has wings. And I'm really curious as to the explanation why this mantis is off-white and not the usual color green that I'm used to. Another very curious thing is that this mantis has eye spots on it's shoulders. Can someone tell me why this mantis is so curious looking? I managed to take a picture of it before I put it back in the cage I keep it in. http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/9026/0725061413aii2.jpg

it looks like all the ones i've seen accpting the fact that they are more of a light brown than offwhite. i never noticed eyespots on the sholders but i havn't tried to pick one up ever since getting pinched by a mantis a few years ago. dependin on where u live it may be out of it's habatat. they do live in the us tho.:{)

I'm getting another picture of him, this time showing the eyespots. I named him Morse because he has this habit of tapping on the side of the glass.

how do you poast pictures? because that would be so helpful. because then i could stop putting up whole websights as the links. and it would probably annyo peole less.

Mantid color often vary with habitat. For instance, if a mantid lives in a green bush, it will be green. If one lives in a brown bush, brown. If you tkae a young (non-adult) brown mantis and put it in a green bush, in a few weeks (after a molt or two) it will be green, like the bushes. The intensity of the green or brown can also vary with that of the plant(s) it's living in. I've seen them a mottled brown/white/light brown(like a Calico cat), and the mottling with different shades of green. Some even change to the color of flowers (as long as it isnt too extreme). They dont change rapidly like a cameleom, but very gradually. As for the spots, they are probably species specific, but they may just be part of the variable color.