Shroudmantis

The Shroudmantis is an ambush insect of the deep jungles of Inland Thazvaar and the most complete mimic recorded on Geba. It matches the foliage around it both to the eye and to thermal instruments.

Its long body and folded forelimbs are covered in leaf-shaped plates that shift color and pattern with the light. It produces almost no heat of its own, so its surface sits at the same temperature as the leaves around it and thermal optics register nothing where it waits. It can hold still for days.

It strikes with its forelimbs from several meters away and can take animals as large as a person, killing them quickly. It hunts alone and feeds where it kills.

For most of imperial history it was known only by what it left behind: survey parties that went into the deep jungle and did not come back. It was first described from Scout-Class observation, since a Scout can pick out what neither the eye nor the instrument can. Contractors working the inland jungles travel with a Scout when they can and stay out of the canopy when they cannot.