Pretty flower, mantis killing machine.

Giant swively-headed mantises have been around for a long time. Fossil traces were found in a disused iron mine in the Canadian sub-Arctic. Dated to around 100 million years ago in the Cretaceous it would have foraged insects from the early ancestors of slipper orchids I am interested in.

A vein pattern on the hindlegs associated solely with praying mantis species formally identified the fossil insect.

Yummm

Didn’t spot the mantis to begin with as I was absorbed with the flowers.

Neither did the tiny bug.

100 million years of subtle genetic modification followed by selection processes has produced a terrifying killing machine.