Feb 5, 2008

Lethal Flowers

These first two photos show the power of mantid camoflage. I pity the insect that mistakes this predator for the dead petals it pretends to be.


























This last one illustrates what it would look like if a flower transformed into a mantis (hello Insecticon) and ate the fly that had been attempting to plumb it for nectar. Oh little fly, sometimes the flower bites back.


Photo source: LinkInn

10 comments:

Unknown said...

This blog has really opened my eyes to the awesomeness of mantids.

Raging Wombat said...

Then my job is complete.

Raging Wombat said...

Then my job is complete.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's incredible.

Anonymous said...

I just can't get over how absolutely gorgeous the flowery looking mantis are. Just beautiful!
And the leaf one is pretty amazing as well. I mean I knew bugs camo'd as live leaves, but didn't know they do it with dead leaves as well. That's pretty wild!

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one who isn't seeing the third picture at all? Anyone know if it's a browser issue or otherwise? And if it IS my browser, which ones are you using so that you CAN see it??

The "dead flower" mantids are beautiful!

Christina Acker said...

Clever... to clever...

Anonymous said...

interesting critter.

Anonymous said...

those are pretty fierce looking flowers

Term papers said...

Love all the Pics of Lethal Flowers. I really liked it. Your Blog is really interesting.