It is one of several species known as flower mantis, a reference to their unique physical form and behaviour, which often involves moving with a “swaying” motion, as if being “blown” in the breeze.

Several species have evolved to mimic orchid flowers as a hunting and camouflaging strategy, “hiding” themselves in plain view and preying upon pollinating insects that visit the blooms.

Prior to development of its camouflage, the female mantis implements ambush predation to allow it to hunt larger pollinating insects.

[4] As the female mantis continues to develop, much of its dramatic increase in size can be attributed to predatory selection and ambush predation.

[6] H. coronatus is found in the rain forests of Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as Singapore.

Hugh Cott referenced an early-20th-century account by Nelson Annandale of Hymenopus coronatus, in which he details how the mantis hunts on the flowers of the "Straits rhododendron" (Melastoma polyanthum).

The insect is pink-and-white (like many orchid blooms), possessing flattened limbs which feature "that semi-opalescent, semi-crystalline appearance that is caused in flower-petals by a purely structural arrangement of liquid globules or empty cells".

Adult and juvenile orchid mantises primarily reflected UV-absorbing white and, based on visual modeling, their colour is indistinguishable from actual flowers (from the perspectives of the pollinating insects).

[10] The female of the species is, reported by Costa (quoting Shelford's 1903 account), to show parental care by guarding her eggs.