Happened to see this Praying Mantis out back at work. He was nice enough to model for me.
Shot with a Sony A7III and Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8.
Details: f/9 @ 1/800, ISO 400, 75mm focal length. This is a 100% crop of an un-edited JPEG straight out of the camera.
Check out my other posts on Sony gear.
Praying Mantis Info
Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 430 genera in 15 families. The largest family is the Mantidae (“mantids”). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They have triangular heads with bulging eyes supported on flexible necks. Their elongated bodies may or may not have wings, but all Mantodea have forelegs that are greatly enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey; their upright posture, while remaining stationary with forearms folded, has led to the common name praying mantis.
Mantises were considered to have supernatural powers by early civilizations, including Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, and Assyria. A cultural trope popular in cartoons imagines the female mantis as a femme fatale. Mantises are among the insects most commonly kept as pets.