Rule #1 for a successful jungle foray: always, ALWAYS bring your wife. She was the one that discovered this wonderful jewel of a mantid sitting in the middle of the asphalt road as we were walking back from the summit of Mt Serapi in Kubah National Park, Sarawak, Borneo.

Mr Full Metal Jacket seemed like a very cooperative little mantis, too, as it just sat there, playing dead, while I took out and prepared my camera gear, and lowered my three hundred pounds of joy into prone position on the tarmac.

Just when I switched on the camera, however, the bastard decided faking death was of no further use, and shot off in insanely fast sprints, forcing me to lug my bulk after him in the most comical fashion. The beast just wouldn't stop dashing off like a maniac every time I came too close, and it felt like I kept near-killing myself and - even worse - my new macro lens many times over by losing balance in my attempt to match his crazy zigzag antics.

In the end, this was the only pic I could use at all. All the others showed either shiny blurs or the dead leaves beneath which he had taken shelter

Species info: Metallyticus splendidus preys mainly on forest cockroaches and is therefore mostly found on dead trees

Unreal.

Come on, Hans.
You folks just went into a craft store and found a decoration pin!

Or that.

Is this a tiger beetle mimic? Pretty uncanny resemblance.

Yes, that's the general opinion, as far as I've gathered. Rather than fly, the thing also runs in jerky sprints, much like a tiger beetle.

Awesome bug!

Wow, a jewel on the forest floor. Too bad it wouldn't stay still and had to be so camera shy.