This beast flew into our campsite at Nsobe, Bangweulu wetlands, Zambia so you know you are not looking for a mammal (maybe a bat?)… Anyway, look for it on the second picture as it will be hard to find it in the first one!
The Nsobe campsite where the beast was detected.
The beast is there somewhere…
It is not easy! So I reveal it below…
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It was a “super flat” Praying mantis, always a great find.
From the rather prolific garden in Harare for you to find:
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A young praying mantis doing its job in insect control.
Closely related to cockroaches and termites, there are over 2,400 species of mantises -both flying and flightless- worldwide. They feed on other insects but not necessarily all of them damaging to agriculture!. Larger species can even hunt small reptiles and birds and about 30% of wild males get cannibalized by their sexual partners.
They have flexible necks that enables them to turn their heads 180 degrees, a feat that no other insect can do and, although they have two large and bulging eyes, they only have one “ear” located in their abdomen so their hearing is limited.
A Bushsnob in Africa 