Our guide took us out 1 night to see the local nightlife. Since this was my first time photographing a praying mantis in the field, I was unsure just how close I could get before it was disturbed enough to move away. After many decades of working with many different mammals, reptiles, and birds, I had an idea of their flight distance and just how close I could get (sometimes, wildlife is unpredictable).

Pulling out the macro lens with special flash, I slowly approached the mantis and fired off a few shots. The vivid green of the mantis made a nice contrast with her black hair and begged me to take a photo. It found a comfortable spot on her scalp and surveyed its surroundings, no doubt looking for insects to munch on. I was glad I had my macro (close-up) lens with me.Īfter getting the lay of the land so to speak, the mantis walked to the top of Jade’s head. Thankfully, Jade loves insects-a good attitude to have when you are going into the rainforest-and didn’t bat an eye. The mantis landed on Jade’s head, one of the women in our group. We were all minding our own business, watching the rainforest go by, when a praying mantis (also called the Borneo stick mantis) decided to crash our party. It happened when we were “klotoking” our way to Camp Leakey.

You might even call this a “symbiotic” relationship! This fascinating carnivorous insect was probably looking for an easy meal, using us to facilitate this as we moved through the rainforest on our boat. What was surprising is how Zen it was in our presence. Coming across a mantis is not surprising in the rainforest. On our boat ride up the Sekonyer river to Camp Leakey, we encountered a praying mantis, confirming just how fascinating the world of arthropods is. It is suspected that each one of the vast number of trees in Borneo can support up to 1,000 species of insects.

Borneo is also home to much smaller critters, including the many thousands of insect species that are just as fascinating and far more numerous. When people think of Borneo, one of the first things that comes to mind is the large primates like the orangutan.

Me too little critter