If you’ve ever watched a praying mantis sitting completely still on a plant in your garden and wondered whether it might be nibbling on the fruit nearby, you’re not alone. It’s a perfectly reasonable question, especially given how often these insects are spotted perched on vegetation. So can praying mantises eat fruit? The answer is no — and there’s actually a really interesting reason why. Read on to find out more.
Praying Mantises Cannot Eat Fruit
Praying mantises are strictly carnivorous insects. Praying mantises are classified as obligate carnivores, meaning their diet must consist entirely of animal protein to survive. They cannot derive the necessary nutrition from vegetation because their digestive systems lack the enzymes required to process plant material like cellulose.
That means fruit, vegetables, leaves, and any other plant matter are completely off the menu — not just because mantises aren’t interested, but because their bodies literally cannot process it. Praying mantises cannot digest plant material and will starve if offered fruits or vegetables instead of live prey. So if you’re keeping a mantis as a pet and you’re thinking about dropping a piece of banana into the enclosure to see what happens, it’s best to skip it entirely. You can read more about what do praying mantises eat in our dedicated guide.
Why Are Praying Mantises Sometimes Found Near Fruit?
This is where a lot of the confusion comes from. Just because a praying mantis is sitting on or near a fruit-bearing plant doesn’t mean it’s eating the fruit. Instances of mantises near fruit-bearing plants are common, yet feeding on the fruit rarely occurs. Their primary goal remains hunting prey, and even when attracted to fruit by scent, mantises tend to ignore it for live insects, reinforcing their carnivorous nature.
What a mantis is actually doing near fruit is hunting. Fruit attracts insects — flies, beetles, moths, and other small creatures all congregate around ripening or rotting fruit. And wherever insects gather, a praying mantis has an excellent reason to sit and wait. Praying mantises exhibit a preference for plants that attract a diverse array of invertebrates, such as flowering plants that produce abundant nectar. These flowers act as feeding hubs, drawing in insects like bees and flies, which in turn become potential prey for hunting mantises. Fruit-bearing plants work in exactly the same way.
What Do Praying Mantises Actually Eat?
Since fruit is completely out of the picture, you might be wondering what a praying mantis’s diet actually looks like. The answer is pretty much anything that moves and is small enough to catch. Prey ranges from common insects like flies, mosquitoes, and aphids to larger insects such as crickets and grasshoppers. Adult mantises occasionally capture and consume small vertebrates, including lizards, frogs, and in rare instances small birds like hummingbirds.
Their diet also changes as they grow. Baby praying mantises — or nymphs — usually prey on aphids, leafhoppers, and fruit flies. On average, a baby mantis will eat around once every 3 to 4 days. As a mantis grows older, it will be able to accommodate larger food. We cover some of their more surprising dietary choices in our articles on can praying mantises eat spiders, can praying mantises eat birds, and can praying mantises eat hummingbirds.
One very important thing to note is that mantises only eat live prey. Mantises prefer live prey that moves, triggering their hunting reflex. They rarely eat dead or still food. This is why simply dropping a piece of food into an enclosure won’t work — the movement of the prey is what triggers the mantis to strike in the first place. You can read more about this fascinating hunting behavior in our article on are praying mantises venomous.
What About Honey Or Sugary Substances?
You might have seen claims online that praying mantises will eat honey or other sweet substances. This is a persistent myth worth clearing up. Mantises have a strictly carnivorous diet and only eat live insects. Feeding them honey is not recommended — they don’t eat it in the wild and there is no reason to start in captivity.
Some studies indicate mantises might show curiosity towards sugary substances, but their anatomy and mouthparts simply aren’t suited for chewing plant matter, and feeding experiments reveal that mantises exhibit little interest in fruit even when offered. Any curiosity they show toward something sweet is far more likely just investigative behavior rather than a sign they actually want to eat it.
What Should You Feed A Pet Praying Mantis Instead?
If you’re keeping a mantis as a pet, sticking to live insects is always the right call. Crickets and grasshoppers will make up the bulk of a pet mantis’s diet. However, if your pet mantis is small or quite young, you can start it off on aphids, fruit flies, and other tiny prey. Meanwhile, larger insects can also eat things like cockroaches, beetles, and flies.
A-Z Animals also notes that as a best practice, live food should be removed from a mantis’s tank if not eaten within an hour. Leaving live insects in the enclosure for too long can actually stress your mantis out, especially if it’s approaching a molt — something we cover in full detail in our article on do praying mantises shed their skin.
It’s also worth knowing that feeding frequency matters. Adult mantises eat every 2 to 3 days, while younger nymphs may eat daily due to their fast metabolism. Getting this right is one of the most important parts of keeping a healthy mantis, and our guide on are praying mantises good pets covers everything you need to know before getting started.
Conclusion
Praying mantises cannot eat fruit and should never be offered it. They are obligate carnivores whose digestive systems are built entirely around processing live animal protein, and fruit or any other plant matter offers them zero nutritional value. When you spot a mantis near fruit in your garden, it isn’t there for the fruit — it’s there for the insects the fruit attracts. Feed your pet mantis a steady rotation of appropriately sized live insects and it’ll stay healthy, active, and thoroughly entertained. If you want to keep learning about these fascinating insects, our guides on can praying mantises eat wax worms and can praying mantises eat ants are great next reads.