This week we acquired an infrared camera and realized that mantids glow like light bulbs under infrared!

Below are two shots for a mantis using a conventional (left) and our new infrared (right) cameras.

Apart from producing very cool mantis photography, this camera has the added advantage of providing a clear outline of the subject mantis in each trial. This is very useful as a first step towards building video processing algorithms which we intend to use as a replacement for human observers in mantis experiments.