The lichen tricksters of the Caribbean
Late in December in the Dominican Republic, I spent an afternoon doing a strange thing: staring at bark. Not because the bark was interesting, but because I knew that somewhere on it, a mantis was almost certainly staring back. The lichen-covered trunks of the garden were the hunting grounds of one of the Caribbean’s most elegant deceivers, and once you know they are there, every grey patch on every tree demands investigation.
These are mantises of the genus Epaphrodita, members of the family Epaphroditidae in the order Mantodea. The family is a small one, mostly Caribbean, and its members have made a specialty of looking like nothing at all: flattened bodies, mottled grey and brown coloring, and irregular outlines that blend into the lichen films growing on old bark. They press themselves flat against the trunk and become, as far as any passing insect or bird is concerned, part of the tree.
The strategy is pure ambush. A mantis sitting on bare bark would be found in seconds; a mantis that looks like the bark can wait all day in plain sight. Small insects that land nearby never notice the predator until the raptorial forelegs snap shut, and by then it is far too late.
Wandering through a Caribbean garden with this knowledge is a small game you cannot stop playing. Every trunk becomes a puzzle, every grey patch a suspect, and occasionally, if you look long enough, the puzzle moves, and the game starts all over again.
