Praying Mantis – V. Wherley
- Discovered: 2019
The V. Wherley line of the praying mantis species breaks every known mantis rule. They actually seem to be mimicking a wasp, a first for the mantis species. It was discovered near the Amazon River in Peru and showed the same color, body structure, and even movement as a wasp. Yet when the discoverer Dr. David Svenson of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History examined it, he found that it had managed to mimick wasps as a way to avoid predators that would otherwise eat it. Considering its most common predators tend to avoid wasps.