Two Asian mantises cross into Europe and earn formal pest status
EFSA has placed Hierodula tenuidentata and Hierodula membranacea on its list of invasive alien species of concern, a decade after the praying mantises first established breeding populations in Europe.
A pair of large Asian praying mantises have been formally recognised as invasive alien species in Europe, the European Food Safety Authority confirmed in a 11 July 2026 update, ending a roughly ten-year grace period during which the insects spread unnoticed from southern gardens into continental ecosystems.
Hierodula tenuidentata and Hierodula membranacea, both native to South and Southeast Asia, were first detected in Europe around 2014 and have since established breeding populations in at least nine countries, including Italy, Spain, southern France, the Balkans, Greece, Malta, and parts of the Mediterranean coast. Their listing under the EU's invasive alien species framework gives national authorities a legal mandate to monitor, contain, and where feasible eradicate them, and signals that Brussels no longer treats their presence as a curiosity.
Two species, one slow invasion
The two Hierodula mantises belong to a genus of robust, long-bodied predators capable of reaching eight to ten centimetres in length, considerably larger than Europe's native Mantis religiosa. They are generalist hunters, taking bees, butterflies, moths, spiders, lizards, and even small frogs. In their native range that appetite is balanced by a deep bench of predators and competitors; in Europe, where they have no natural controls, the equation tilts quickly in their favour.
EFSA's scientific assessment, published on 11 July 2026, concludes that both species satisfy the criteria for inclusion on the Union list of invasive alien species of concern: they are established, they are spreading, and they pose a credible threat to native biodiversity, ecosystem services, and in some scenarios to apiculture. The decision obliges member states to take early-warning and rapid-response measures, restrict trade, and develop management plans.
An overlooked side door
The dominant explanation for the mantises' arrival is the plant trade. Eggs laid on nursery stock survive dormant through long shipping cycles and hatch in destination gardens, far from any port of entry. That pathway is the same one that has carried the Asian hornet, the spotted lanternfly, and several longhorn beetles into Europe over the past two decades, and it is one regulators have repeatedly tried to tighten.
Critics argue the EU's phytosanitary regime still operates on a reactive model, identifying pests only after they have established breeding populations. Defenders counter that no inspection system can screen every imported plant for invisible egg cases, and that the cost of false positives, blocking legitimate trade, is politically harder to absorb than the cost of a slow invasion. The Hierodula listing, in that reading, is a small step toward closing a known gap rather than evidence the system is broken.
What a top predator erases
Praying mantises sit near the top of the arthropod food chain, which makes the ecological risk disproportionate to their size. A breeding population of an eight-centimetre generalist predator does not simply add a new animal to a habitat; it reshapes the menu that pollinators, parasitoid wasps, and ground beetles can rely on. EFSA's assessment highlights potential pressure on native mantis species, on apiculture, and on butterfly and moth populations already under stress from habitat loss.
The structural concern is that Europe is being asked to manage an accelerating wave of such introductions, many of which arrive through the same plant-trade channel, on a budget and at a speed that lags the biology. The two Hierodula species are now formally on notice; the next candidates, including several tree-dwelling mantises spreading in the same corridor, are already in observation.
What gets done about it
The Union list designation does not by itself eliminate either species. Member states are required to develop management plans, monitor trade, and where feasible run targeted control programmes, but large-scale eradication of an established insect across a continent is, in the experience of the Asian hornet campaign, a multi-year and often losing fight. The most realistic near-term outcome is containment around ecologically sensitive sites, public reporting systems, and tighter import checks on nursery stock from known source regions.
What remains genuinely uncertain is whether the listing will change behaviour upstream, in the nurseries, wholesalers, and online plant sellers whose shipments carry the egg cases across borders. The biology of the invasion is now mapped; the politics of the supply chain that delivered it, far less so.
Desk note: Monexus framed this as a regulatory milestone ten years in the making, not a breaking crisis, and gave equal weight to the plant-trade pathway and the ecological case for listing.
Wire provenance
This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:
- https://t.me/uniannet/
- https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/biological-hazards
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierodula_tenuidentata
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierodula_membranacea