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Oh this is so horrible and so excellent too. I love strange looking critters and you have captured all of his strangeness. I wish we had these living in my neck of the woods. You have two small lens-dust spots in the upper-right of the image that should be removed. There may be two more in the dark-green at the bottom-center, but they are not as noticeable.

I am quite good at seeing lens spots because I have to work hard to remove them from most of my photographs. When I'm shooting in Montana/Wyoming I almost have to wipe my lens before each shot. The fine dust is incredible there in the autumn.

Susan, Great light and detail. I have no idea how you got this close. 

I've never seen so grotesque picture of mantis so far! And I consider it a quality of this great macro shot!

PDE

Thank you, all! Shawn, you're right! I didn't even see them, but when I took off the macro lens, I did see a speck of dust and removed it. Now that you've pointed them out, I can fix them. Thanks! These mantises are so arrogant that I'm able to stick my lens within an inch of their faces and they just try to stare me down. They don't make any sudden moves. In fact, this photo has been rotated 180... he was upside down.

If you can get this close then you have a winning series in your future. This is a wonderful start.

Beautiful work, Susan!