Iris oratoria, also known by the common name

Common name

A common name of a taxon or organism is a name in general use within a community; it is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism...

 Mediterranean Mantis or (less frequently) Iris mantis, is a very widespread species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of praying mantis native to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and now found as an introduced species

Introduced species

An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...

 in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

, Western Asia and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Appearance

I. oratoria is very pale when young but matures to a mostly green color and grows to about 6.5 cm long. This species may be distinguished from Mantis religiosa and other mantids with which it shares a range and general size and shape by a very distinguishing red-orange spot on its ventral side on the fourth (second to last) abdominal segment; cerci

Cercus

Cerci are paired appendages on the rear-most segments of many arthropods, including insects and arachnids but not crustaceans. Cerci often serve as sensory organs, but they may also be used as weapons or copulation aids, or they may simply be vestigial structures.Typical cerci may appear to be...

 are shorter than those of M. religiosa as well. This species is also distinctive in possessing two large violet-brown eyespots on its hind wings which are revealed when its wings are unfolded. Females have wings shorter than the abdomen.

Reproduction

Two novel (and only recently documented) I. oratoria survival strategies may be contributing to the expansion of this species beyond its original range and its success in areas formerly occupied by other mantids such as Stagmomantis carolina.

First, this species is capable of parthenogenic

Parthenogenesis

Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction found in females, where growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization by a male...

 reproduction when males are scarce. Second, additional I. oratoria nymph

Nymph (biology)

In biology, a nymph is the immature form of some invertebrates, particularly insects, which undergoes gradual metamorphosis before reaching its adult stage. Unlike a typical larva, a nymph's overall form already resembles that of the adult. In addition, while a nymph moults it never enters a...

s may emerge from their ootheca

Ootheca

An ootheca is a type of egg mass made by any member of a variety of species .The word is a latinized combination of oo-, meaning "egg", from the Greek word ōon , and theca, meaning a "cover" or "container", from the Greek theke...

e in the second season after the egg case is produced, i.e., when their siblings are already grown and having their own offspring.

The sexual cannibalism

Sexual cannibalism

Sexual cannibalism is a special case of cannibalism in which a female organism kills and consumes a male of the same species before, during, or after copulation. On rare occasions, these roles are reversed.-Prevalence:...

 of mantids often referred to in popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

occurs in roughly one quarter of all intersexual encounters of I. oratoria.