Busy week! I decided to reward myself this weekend by going out and finding myself a new species of mantis.

Back in February, I had come across the glimpse of a mantis on the trunk of an old rubber tree. It was in my sights for about a fraction of a second before it darted off, never to be seen again.

Cut to yesterday; I finally decided to go out an find myself one of these elusive mantises. I scoured an old rubber plantation, and within half an hour, I'd bagged myself two specimens: one healthy adult female, and one...less healthy subadult female.

This is the subadult female! Her name is Duan :]

When I caught her, I didn't notice she'd endured a molting mishap some time before I found her. One of her legs was still stuck in the old (now quite weathered) shed skin--and the other leg on the same side doesn't display a full range of motion.

I helped free her of the large, unwieldy chunk of shedskin that she'd been dragging around, but with two bum legs on the same side...I don't have high hopes that she'll have a successful molt into adulthood...
buuut, we'll try our best.