Perched on a leaf 1.5 meters above the ground, a female praying mantis of the species Choeradodis rhomboidea watched as entomologists passed by, flashlights in hand, in the ZF2 Biological Reserve of the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), located in the Amazon rainforest about 80 kilometers north of Manaus. The mantis was collected as part of a survey documenting insects in different layers of the forest—from the ground to the treetops—in a project led by Dalton Amorim, a biologist from the University of São Paulo (USP), Ribeirão Preto campus. In addition to identifying the animals through morphological and genetic studies, the group also shares information about this biodiversity on Instagram, through the profile @bio_insecta.
Image submitted by biologist Leandro Magrini, a student of the Scientific Journalism Program at the Ribeirão Preto School of Philosophy, Sciences, and Languages and Literature (FFCLRP) at USP
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