mantiseater
Well-known member
So im back from Costa Rica. Unfortunately no live hooded mantises were seen :taz: . The only evidence of one being in costa rica was a dead male in one of the pinned collections at La Paz waterfall Gardens. Even though no hoods were found on the trip I did find many mantises. The first mantis I found was an adult female liturgusa on a wooded post on one of the forest trails at my hotel. at first I thought it was super special until i found at least 10 of them at Manuel Antonio national park. Finding bark mantises was only half of it though. They are very very fast and run up and around the tree if you don't block their path to go up. You have to scare them to the bottom of the tree and grab them. They don't press against the tree like other bark mantises so the arent tooo hard to find. In the end I only was able to catch three to adult females and one adult male. I also found I few ooths but I dont know where they went. Another cool mantis I found which was very cool was an adult male angela sp. It came to the UV light my dad and I set up. On a wall at the resort I caught a very tiny adult male stick mantis. around the resort plants I caught a few l1 nymphs on palm leaves 1 stagmomantis ooth on a mango tree and one medium sized nymph of what looks like stagmomantis on a bush. On a palm leaf at the hotel I found an adult male dead leaf mantis. The last mantis of the trip was the best. On a stick at Carara National Forest I found an adult female Chaeteessa sp. I have no idea in the world how I spotted it. it was the best camouflaged and fastest mantis i have ever seen. while catching it me and my dad found out it could fly and right when we were about to grab it a giant tour group passed by. finally after a crazy ten minute game of hide and seek tag me and my dad were able to grab it and shove it in a case. I never knew Chaeteessa sp. lived in costa rica. maybe its a new species of Chaeteessa. unfortunately on the drive to the airport all the mantises just died for no reason except for one adult female bark the Chaeteessa sp. and the stagmomantises. It was a great trip and I hope to go back soon!
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