I was hoping to find some cool and crazy looking insects while in Madagascar (ok – we did get to see some stick insects, but I didn’t have the good camera with me that day), but while praying mantis are always fun to find and watch, these two are not super crazy looking.
The first one here is actually pretty tiny – maybe an inch long. I would see them running around in the sand, so the same day I found that Burrowing Fly I spotted this little one. I sat with it for a bit while it hunted this even tinier leaf hopper. Both has the typical pale coloration of sand dwelling insects, so without getting close you wouldn’t even see them…
This second mantis was actually in our hut the one night. As I returned to the hut, Pius told me there was a cool surprise inside and I needed my camera. After we caught the mantis and relocated it outside, I was thinking it just looked like a normal mantis similar to what I’ve seen here at home… and then I saw those yellow, blue, and red color bands on the insides of the arms… so I did indeed go get the camera and actually took some photos with it still in the underwater housing so I could make use of the flash strobe.
