Dream (Mantis Religiousa) 1935 MC Escher
size M Escher created this surrealistic woodcut by combining several favorite design elements into a bizarre dreamscape. Escher had illustrated the insect sometime before, when an obliging mantis landed and posed upon his sketchbook.
The mantis has also become a figure used to describe metaphysical or extraterrestrial creatures in various horror myths and in purported tales of alien visitations, though the creatures' connection through Escher is almost certainly coincidental.