By Tim Binnall
A woman walking through a forest in Costa Rica was left scratching her head when she stumbled upon a bizarre stick-like creature lurking on a tree branch.The wondrous video was reportedly filmed by Antonieta Mora as she was out gathering fruit to make juice. Her otherwise routine trip into the wilderness took a weird turn when she noticed something on a tree was moving.
"At first I thought it was a bit of moss," Mora recalled, "then I thought it was a cricket and then I didn't know if it was a type of praying mantis." Fortunately, she managed to film the odd insect, which resembles a bundle of thorny twigs, slowly crawling along a tree branch. Amazed by what she was watching, Mora marveled that she had never seen such a thing and "I have lived all my life in rural areas."
Wondering what kind of creature she had encountered, Mora shared her video on a Facebook group devoted to Costa Rican insects and the mystery was soon solved by one of the members. The puzzling bug turned out to be a species of cricket known as a Markia espinachi. The creature's unique stick-like appearance is actually just a natural camouflage that protects it from predators.