Creature Feature #451: Mantidfly

This post is dedicated to Robert Silberbauer, who introduced me to this almost-chimerical critter last night.
(He's an entomologist)

The Mantidflies are a Family of small-to-medium-sized carnivorous insects that resemble a hybrid between wasp and mantis. The wasp resemblance is an example of Batesian mimicry: in which one animal resembles another, usually more dangerous one, to deter predation. These nocturnal insects hunt in the same manner as the diurnal mantids, lying in wait for the prey to come close, then snatching it up with their front forelimbs. In some species, the juveniles, in their larval stage, predate spiders and their egg sacs, even going so far as to parasitise the female spider and draining her hemolymph (arthropod blood).