Freaky mantids

[yen_saw]

Now that's one freaky dead leaf mantis!! and what a pleasant surprise the pdf file is in english (i was expecting German really coming from Christian ) Thanks for the link! Sarawak is a nice place, but the habitat has not been conserved properly. Years ago, Malaysia decided to build a huge dam (Bakun project) in Sarawak, they cut down lot of trees for the access road. The developer make all the money (and obviously the government too) selling those huge logs but at the end the project went kabut! HOwever, Sarawak is the largest state in Malaysia and still plenty of virgin land yet to explore. Hopefully this species (D. sarawaca) can resurface in the future.

 

[Christian]

Well, the habitat losses because of that lake are almost nothing comparing to the damage caused by timber companies. E Malaysia still has large amounts of virgin forest, but large parts of the state are, or were, explored for timber already. The access trails to every logged tree are the real damage, not even the felled tree itself. The long-term prediction for Borneo is that just about 50% of the primary forest will remain in about 20 yrs, mostly in the Central regions (S Sarawak, S Sabah, Brunei & N Kalimantan). There is much more left today, but the Malaysian government practically degraded the Eastern states to timber and oil palm sources. The parts adjacent to the coast are already heavily degraded. The problem arises for local endemites: if a species occurs just in a small region and this region happens to lay in a heavily inhabited area, the species my well go extinct. Mantids usually have rather large distributional areas, even an area as, say, N Borneo is still large enough to sustain a species. But there may well be exceptions. The point is, as it is not really known where D. sarawaca really was from, the actual status cannot be assessed. It is difficult enough to find species which are known to occur in an area, how does anyone want to find one without proper knowledge of its actual distribution? I remember seeing one in a collection once, but I cannot remember what was written on the label. I don't even know if I really saw one or just think I saw one. I think I'm getting old... :huh: I will have to check more collections when I happen to be in the respective town. However, I already studied some collections and never saw a specimen again.

 

[robo mantis]

I know i meant they look like crossbreeds.

 

[mantisguy101]

oh my goodness. i love the third one, though all of them are incredible