An amazing finding during a mantis's dinner-table drama (as observed by a non-expert in forest-edge uplands in the Canary Islands, Aug 2020).
1/6 A praying mantis -- a predator of insects that is as grimly formidable as it looks -- flies in noisily for a late-evening dinner...
2/6 He disappears briefly...
soon emerging from the moonless gloom to the edge of a side-lit terrace..
keeping an eye on the moths and other insects that gather around its grand, luminous stage...
3/6 Or is the stage already this gecko's?...
And whether or not it was actually aiming for the mantis, the latter takes evasive action and moves rapidly away...