It'll probably still try and drink from it and end up drowning. Its alot to do with surface tension .....its like it'll get "stuck" to the waters surface. Ive had ghost mantis and flower mantis and the typical Chinese mantis you know the big green or brown ones you can find outside. The flower and ghost are very small and they are some of the most available ones. These are some of the coolest looking ones imo. I had a small group of the flower mantids in a 75g martymade tank. The chinese ones are much bigger and probably would be ok with water (?) but really need more room then the 10 or 20 gallon space. Either way I'd not chance it. They deffinately are cool critters though. To bad they have such short lives. The larger ones can live about 2 years if its a female the smaller ones are 9 months to a year. They are really clumsy though its amazing how often they fall so smaller water may help but like I said if they can get to it it'll probably end badly. They recommend misting the side of the enclosure for humidity and drinking purposes.
You could do the frog thing. Darts are cool ive kept them too. Contrary to popular belief they can swim they are not great at it though so you'll need to keep that in mind while designing the tank. Land to water ratio should be at least 70/30. If you want to go with more arboreal style you could get tree frogs. Things like red eye or peacock those are on the smaller side and nice looking. There are more both smaller and mostly larger that you probably wouldnt want for that size tank. Maybe a small gecko? Ive not kept them or know a lot about them but ive always liked the gargoyle and satanic leaf geckos. They look so cool. My lfs had a really cool setup with one of the two of those for a few years, plants background, vines. Looked really cool.
You could do the frog thing. Darts are cool ive kept them too. Contrary to popular belief they can swim they are not great at it though so you'll need to keep that in mind while designing the tank. Land to water ratio should be at least 70/30. If you want to go with more arboreal style you could get tree frogs. Things like red eye or peacock those are on the smaller side and nice looking. There are more both smaller and mostly larger that you probably wouldnt want for that size tank. Maybe a small gecko? Ive not kept them or know a lot about them but ive always liked the gargoyle and satanic leaf geckos. They look so cool. My lfs had a really cool setup with one of the two of those for a few years, plants background, vines. Looked really cool.
