Flower mantis

Flower mantises are those species of praying mantises that mimic flowers.[2] Their coloration is an example of aggressive mimicry, a form of camouflage in which a predator's colours and patterns lure prey.[3] The flower mantises are not a natural group with a single ancestor (a clade), but most of the species are in the family Hymenopodidae. Their behaviours vary, but typically involve climbing a plant, and then staying still until a prey insect comes within range (ambush predation). Many species of flower mantises are popular as pets.

The flower mantises include the orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus, which mimics a rainforest orchid of southeast Asia to lure its prey, pollinator insects.[1]

The orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus, of Southeast Asia mimics an orchid flower. It remains motionless on the plant until prey arrives; the same camouflage also protects it from predators.[4] In his 1940 book Adaptive Coloration in Animals, Hugh Cott quotes an account by Nelson Annandale, saying that the mantis hunts on the flowers of the "Straits Rhododendron", Melastoma polyanthum. The nymph has what Cott calls "special alluring coloration" (aggressive mimicry), where the animal itself is the "decoy". The insect is pink and white, with flattened limbs with "that semiopalescent, semicrystalline appearance that is caused in flower petals by a purely structural arrangement of liquid globules or empty cells". The mantis climbs up the twigs of the plant and stands imitating a flower and waits for its prey patiently. It then sways from side to side, and soon various small flies land on and around it, attracted by the small black spot on the end of its abdomen, which resembles a fly. When a larger dipteran fly, as big as a house fly, landed nearby, the mantis at once seized and ate it.[5][6] More recently (2015), the orchid mantis's coloration has been shown to be an effective mimic of tropical flowers, and it has been demonstrated to attract pollinators (as if it were a flower) and then to catch them.[7]