Bark mantis anatomy

[leviatan]

I have some Tarachodes sp. matises. I took some pictures of them:

Tarachodes sp. by leviatan.mantis, on Flickr

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Tarachodes sp. by leviatan.mantis, on Flickr

Any idea what they are for? I mean this hair-like something?

First thought I had that they are some kind receptors. What you think?

Look at my youtube channel-> http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa2BlB0ZH-qqE3M9g-lc_rA/videos
I have a movie with bark mantis behaviour:
http://youtu.be/EMToLE7CsUo

 

[sally]

I loved the video

 

[Rick]

Perhaps to sense vibrations along the twig coming from prey?

 

[Pizzaparlor45]

In my opinion bark mantids have some of the best camoflauge of all mantids

 

[DanielMTLe]

I'm with Rick. It looks like (no expert) because their face is pretty much buried into the twig, and not swiveling around looking at stuff, it's relying more on touch and subtle changes in their immediate surroundings to locate prey and potential threats.

 

[Ranitomeya]

The hairs are to break up the outline of the mantis and help hide the fact that it is casting a shadow beneath it. Many animals that use camouflage to look like part of their background have evolved similar ways to make themselves appear less like a patch of something on the background and more like some discoloration of the background itself. A fantastic example would be Uroplatus sikorae, a gecko that has a fringe of skin all along its body that helps it hide any shadow cast on the background by its body.

 

[Rick]

The hairs are to break up the outline of the mantis and help hide the fact that it is casting a shadow beneath it. Many animals that use camouflage to look like part of their background have evolved similar ways to make themselves appear less like a patch of something on the background and more like some discoloration of the background itself. A fantastic example would be Uroplatus sikorae, a gecko that has a fringe of skin all along its body that helps it hide any shadow cast on the background by its body.

That is also a good hypothesis but it could have more than one function.