Monomad: Stowaway

I noticed that the rose apple tree in my yard keeps blooming every day. This makes the pollinators very happy; they always come to sip the nectar. I can feel their excitement. Almost every morning I look at the flowers one by one, sometimes I see a bee or wasp with its butt up while its head is buried in the thick stamens. But this time there was something different. An Asian ant mantis crawled on tiptoe like a thief.

The mantis is not a pollinator but rather a predator. It has a hidden mission: to seize the opportunity to ambush the approaching pollinators. This guy is a stowaway!

^{This is another entry I submitted for the daily #monomad challenge.}

^{These photos are my own, taken with POCO X3 NFC smartphone + external macro lens.}