Matthew Connors, a Ph.D. candidate at James Cook University, was examining the spiny appendages of a tiny praying mantis when he realized he was looking at something extraordinary: up to 60 spines crammed onto structures no other mantis species in the world possesses. That discovery, and two others like it, has just doubled humanity's known count of Kongobatha—the snake mantises that flatten themselves ghost-like against leaves to hide from predators and hunters alike.
The Kongobatha genus, also called leaf-planking mantises for the way they press their bodies flat against foliage, remained one of nature's great mysteries for decades. These insects, marked by snake-like patterns on their wings, had been documented in only two species: one from Australia and another from Papua New Guinea. Now Connors has formally described three new-to-science species—K. serpens, K. spinosistyla, and K. rufilinea—and revealed that a previously known Papua New Guinea species actually thrives in Australia as well.
What makes these mantises so hard to spot, Connors explained, is more than just camouflage habit. "They have this special organ right on their chest that is a sensory thing, and it helps them flatten themselves down really nicely against a leaf, so that they're really hard for a predator to see," he said. But identifying them required looking at the minute details that distinguish males: the styli, small appendage-like structures at the end of the abdomen that may play a role in mating—though that remains a mystery. The number and pattern of spines on these styli differ dramatically between species, with K. spinosistyla displaying that remarkable 60-spine configuration.
To conduct his research, Connors didn't rely on fieldwork alone. He collected fresh specimens and sourced others from Australian and international museums and private collections, examining them under a microscope. But he also tapped into a growing resource: citizen scientists. Photographs posted on platforms like iNaturalist provided crucial data about where these mantises live, what habitats they prefer, and how they behave in the wild. That crowdsourced approach revealed something charming: K. serpens has adapted remarkably well to urban life, becoming a common resident in suburban gardens across Brisbane and Sydney, drawn to lights at night.
Yet the story carries a note of uncertainty. K. rufilinea, the third new species, is known from only a single specimen collected in Papua New Guinea more than half a century ago. No one has documented it since. "We cannot protect what we don't know about," Connors reflected, "but I have hope that this species is still out there, and formally naming and describing the species is the first step to ensuring its survival."
All four Australian Kongobatha species appear to be thriving, a small reassurance in a world where insect populations face mounting pressures. But Connors's work highlights something essential: there are still species living among us, hiding in plain sight on leaves, waiting to be properly known—and protected.