Praying Mantis Playing Dead

One of my mantids suddenly died.  It was a shocking situation, I barely touched the poor dude, and he just keeled over and was no more.  I couldn't figure out how this possibly could have killed him, but after poking at him a bit to confirm he really was gone, I put him aside to deal with later (does this remind of you of the drowned ant story?).  About 15 minutes later, he was not so dead.  So I looked up praying mantis playing dead on google.  I found one site with photos of a much large mantis playing dead and then looking quite alive, here:
http://www.drybrushwet.com/nature/praying-mantis-playing-dead/

and a very obscure reference, reference to a reference really, in the book

The Optical Unconscious

By Rosalind E. Krauss,

Krauss refers to writing by Roger Calloisa, French intellectual writer, who remarked that the mantis was capable of feigning death even when decapitated, and therefore, essentially dead.  Being able to pretend to be dead when you are, kind of already dead, is quite a feat indeed.  

I didn't try decapitating any of my mantids to test this out, but I did manage to get a very obvious playing dead and reawakening video, which is above, I apologize for the quality of the video, I will try to improve on it later.  I am really falling for these insects that are such incredible characters.  More to follow on the wonders of the praying mantis.