Best material period.

[Colorcham427]

Soft fabric mesh, the material that you would find in a bathing suit or a fold-able laundry hamper.

Screen mesh, the sort of screen cages meant for chameleons are slippery. Especially the metal kinds!!!

For the species that eat crickets, roaches, super worms without any issues, I would just container feed them. Meaning keep the feeders in a bowl or some what deep container for the mantids to pick off when hanging upside down.

And of course, the mesh should be wide holed, but not so wide that the BBs could escape! lol

I can't stress enough how important this sort of material is for most if not all larger sp. of mantids.

 

[Rick]

Net cages are made of mesh. I have used fiberglass window screen and find it works just as good. Many good choices out there.

 

[Krissim Klaw]

I prefer the softer mesh cages hands down for mantids. I think one of the biggest things I notice is that if offered a plastic/glass container with only a mesh top, the mantises always seem to spend all their times hanging upside down from the top and generally will try to shed from there. When I however provide a mesh container with mesh sides and top so many of the species I've dealt with not only prefer to hang from the sides but they choose to shed on them.