Photo of the Day 247

Praying Mantis, Southeast Asia, 2001

Photograph by Tim Laman

This extreme close-up shows the business end of a praying mantis, one of the insect world's most formidable predators. Mantids have two large compound eyes and three other simple eyes located between them. Some species can see movement up to 60 feet (18 meters) away.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Night Shift in the Rain Forest," October 2001, National Geographic magazine)