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- This page contains pictures and information about Brown Bark Mantids that we found
in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
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 - Female, body length 20mm
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- We used to put this Brown Bark Mantid together with the Black
Bark
Mantid as one species. We saw them quite a few times and learnt that they look quite different.
We believe they should be in different species and put them in separated pages.
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- Brown Bark Mantids are dark brown to dark grey in colours. They have the cylindrical
abdomen with a pale colour end tip. They have the cryptic colours and hard to be seen on
bark or on ground among those plant materials.
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   -
- During bush-walking along Stockyard Creek in Burbank, we found two Brown Bark
Mantids moving on ground among the dry gum tree leaves and falling barks. One
was dark grey and the other was dark brown in colour. They were well camouflage and
we saw them only because they were moving.
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- The Boxer Bark Mantids that we found are wingless, so they should be females
(male is winged and with slender body, see below). They have long legs and holding their front pair of legs
in 'boxing' display as most other praying mantids.
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- We also found them in a Bushland near Tingalpa Reservoir. It was hunting
on a large smooth bark gum tree trunk near the base, ran onto the forest floor when we
came closer.
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- Like some other praying mantids, they also have colour patches on their inner forelegs.
This Boxer Bark Mantid has the orange ones. It
is believed this is a territorial display to space out individuals of the same
species.
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- Reference and links:
- 1. Insects
of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University
Press, 2nd Edition 1991, p 353-354.
- 2. Insects of Australia and New Zealand - R. J. Tillyard, Angus &
Robertson, Ltd, Sydney, 1926, p93.
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