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33-653: See text Mantises are an order ( Mantodea ) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They have triangular heads with bulging eyes supported on flexible necks. Their elongated bodies may or may not have wings, but all Mantodea have forelegs that are greatly enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey; their upright posture, while remaining stationary with forearms folded, has led to

66-461: A cohors (plural cohortes ). Some of the plant families still retain the names of Linnaean "natural orders" or even the names of pre-Linnaean natural groups recognized by Linnaeus as orders in his natural classification (e.g. Palmae or Labiatae ). Such names are known as descriptive family names. In the field of zoology , the Linnaean orders were used more consistently. That is,

99-404: A prothorax , a mesothorax , and a metathorax . In all species apart from the genus Mantoida , the prothorax, which bears the head and forelegs, is much longer than the other two thoracic segments. The prothorax is also flexibly articulated, allowing for a wide range of movements of the head and fore limbs while the remainder of the body remains more or less immobile. Mantises also are unique to

132-509: A capital letter. For some groups of organisms, their orders may follow consistent naming schemes . Orders of plants , fungi , and algae use the suffix -ales (e.g. Dictyotales ). Orders of birds and fishes use the Latin suffix -iformes meaning 'having the form of' (e.g. Passeriformes ), but orders of mammals and invertebrates are not so consistent (e.g. Artiodactyla , Actiniaria , Primates ). For some clades covered by

165-570: A distinct rank of biological classification having its own distinctive name (and not just called a higher genus ( genus summum )) was first introduced by the German botanist Augustus Quirinus Rivinus in his classification of plants that appeared in a series of treatises in the 1690s. Carl Linnaeus was the first to apply it consistently to the division of all three kingdoms of nature (then minerals , plants , and animals ) in his Systema Naturae (1735, 1st. Ed.). For plants, Linnaeus' orders in

198-515: A few ground-dwelling species are found actively pursuing their prey. They normally live for about a year. In cooler climates, the adults lay eggs in autumn, then die. The eggs are protected by their hard capsules and hatch in the spring. Females sometimes practice sexual cannibalism , eating their mates after copulation. Mantises were considered to have supernatural powers by early civilizations, including ancient Greece , ancient Egypt , and Assyria . A cultural trope popular in cartoons imagines

231-409: A mantis has two sets of wings: the outer wings, or tegmina , are usually narrow and leathery. They function as camouflage and as a shield for the hindwings, which are clearer and more delicate. The abdomen of all mantises consists of 10 tergites , with a corresponding set of nine sternites visible in males and seven visible in females. The abdomen tends to be slimmer in males than females, but ends in

264-404: A pair of cerci in both sexes. Mantises have stereo vision . They locate their prey by sight; their compound eyes contain up to 10,000 ommatidia . A small area at the front called the fovea has greater visual acuity than the rest of the eye, and can produce the high resolution necessary to examine potential prey. The peripheral ommatidia are concerned with perceiving motion; when a moving object

297-460: A similar series of tubercles along the tibia and the apical claw near its tip, give the foreleg of the mantis its grasp on its prey. The foreleg ends in a delicate tarsus used as a walking appendage, made of four or five segments and ending in a two-toed claw with no arolium . Mantises can be loosely categorized as being macropterous (long-winged), brachypterous (short-winged), micropterous (vestigial-winged), or apterous (wingless). If not wingless,

330-494: A wide binocular field of vision and precise stereoscopic vision at close range. The dark spot on each eye that moves as it rotates its head is a pseudopupil . This occurs because the ommatidia that are viewed "head-on" absorb the incident light , while those to the side reflect it. As their hunting relies heavily on vision, mantises are primarily diurnal . Many species, however, fly at night, and then may be attracted to artificial lights . They have good night vision. Mantises in

363-419: Is determined by a taxonomist , as is whether a particular order should be recognized at all. Often there is no exact agreement, with different taxonomists each taking a different position. There are no hard rules that a taxonomist needs to follow in describing or recognizing an order. Some taxa are accepted almost universally, while others are recognized only rarely. The name of an order is usually written with

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396-427: Is noticed, the head is rapidly rotated to bring the object into the visual field of the fovea. Further motions of the prey are then tracked by movements of the mantis's head so as to keep the image centered on the fovea. The use of stereoscopic vision differs from humans or primates because they specifically utilize this vision for capturing and spotting prey. The eyes are widely spaced and laterally situated, affording

429-465: The Dictyoptera in that they have tympanate hearing, with two tympana in an auditory chamber in their metathorax. Most mantises can only hear ultrasound . Mantises have two spiked, grasping forelegs ("raptorial legs") in which prey items are caught and held securely. In most insect legs, including the posterior four legs of a mantis, the coxa and trochanter combine as an inconspicuous base of

462-712: The Early Cretaceous . Fossils of the group are rare: by 2022, 37 fossil species are known. Fossil mantises, including one from Japan with spines on the front legs as in modern mantises, have been found in Cretaceous amber. Most fossils in amber are nymphs; compression fossils (in rock) include adults. Fossil mantises from the Crato Formation in Brazil include the 10 mm (0.39 in) long Santanmantis axelrodi , described in 2003; as in modern mantises,

495-528: The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature , several additional classifications are sometimes used, although not all of these are officially recognized. In their 1997 classification of mammals , McKenna and Bell used two extra levels between superorder and order: grandorder and mirorder . Michael Novacek (1986) inserted them at the same position. Michael Benton (2005) inserted them between superorder and magnorder instead. This position

528-865: The Mantidae and Thespidae especially were considered polyphyletic , so the Mantodea have been revised substantially as of 2019 and now includes 29 families. † Extinct Genera Chaeteessidae Mantoididae Metallyticidae Thespidae Angelidae Coptopterygidae Liturgusidae Photinaidae Acanthopidae Chroicopteridae Leptomantellidae Amorphoscelidae Nanomantidae Gonypetidae Epaphroditidae Majangidae Haaniidae Rivetinidae Amelidae Eremiaphilidae Toxoderidae Hoplocoryphidae Miomantidae Galinthiadidae Empusidae Hymenopodidae Dactylopterygidae Deroplatyidae Mantidae Mantises are thought to have evolved from cockroach-like ancestors. The earliest confidently identified mantis fossils date to

561-815: The Systema Naturae and the Species Plantarum were strictly artificial, introduced to subdivide the artificial classes into more comprehensible smaller groups. When the word ordo was first consistently used for natural units of plants, in 19th-century works such as the Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and the Genera Plantarum of Bentham & Hooker, it indicated taxa that are now given

594-431: The cockroaches (now Blattodea ) and ice crawlers (now Grylloblattodea ). Kristensen (1991) combined the Mantodea with the cockroaches and termites into the order Dictyoptera , suborder Mantodea. Evolutionary relationships based on Evangelista et al. 2019 are shown in the cladogram : (Mantises) (Cockroaches and termites) One of the earliest classifications splitting an all-inclusive Mantidae into multiple families

627-448: The common name praying mantis . The closest relatives of mantises are termites and cockroaches ( Blattodea ), which are all within the superorder Dictyoptera . Mantises are sometimes confused with stick insects ( Phasmatodea ), other elongated insects such as grasshoppers ( Orthoptera ), or other more distantly related insects with raptorial forelegs such as mantisflies ( Mantispidae ). Mantises are mostly ambush predators , but

660-1091: The family Liturgusidae collected at night have been shown to be predominately males; this is probably true for most mantises. Nocturnal flight is especially important to males in locating less-mobile females by detecting their pheromones . Flying at night exposes mantises to fewer bird predators than diurnal flight would. Many mantises also have an auditory thoracic organ that helps them avoid bats by detecting their echolocation calls and responding evasively. Mantises are generalist predators of arthropods . The majority of mantises are ambush predators that only feed upon live prey within their reach. They either camouflage themselves and remain stationary, waiting for prey to approach, or stalk their prey with slow, stealthy movements. Larger mantises sometimes eat smaller individuals of their own species, as well as small vertebrates such as lizards, frogs, fish, and particularly small birds. Most mantises stalk tempting prey if it strays close enough, and will go further when they are especially hungry. Once within reach, mantises strike rapidly to grasp

693-490: The female mantis as a femme fatale . Mantises are among the insects most commonly kept as pets . The name mantodea is formed from the Ancient Greek words μάντις ( mantis ) meaning "prophet", and εἶδος ( eidos ) meaning "form" or "type". It was coined in 1838 by the German entomologist Hermann Burmeister . The name "mantid" properly refers only to members of the family Mantidae , which was, historically,

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726-493: The front legs were adapted for catching prey. Well-preserved specimens yield details as small as 5 μm through X-ray computed tomography . Extinct families and genera include: Because of the superficially similar raptorial forelegs , mantidflies may be confused with mantises, though they are unrelated. Their similarity is an example of convergent evolution ; mantidflies do not have tegmina (leathery forewings) like mantises, their antennae are shorter and less thread-like, and

759-423: The leg; in the raptorial legs, however, the coxa and trochanter combine to form a segment about as long as the femur , which is a spiky part of the grasping apparatus (see illustration). Located at the base of the femur is a set of discoidal spines, usually four in number, but ranging from none to as many as five depending on the species. These spines are preceded by a number of tooth-like tubercles, which, along with

792-561: The only family in the order. The other common name, praying mantis, applied to any species in the order (though in Europe mainly to Mantis religiosa ), comes from the typical " prayer -like" posture with folded forelimbs. The vernacular plural "mantises" (used in this article) was confined largely to the US, with "mantids" predominantly used as the plural in the UK and elsewhere, until the family Mantidae

825-708: The orders in the zoology part of the Systema Naturae refer to natural groups. Some of his ordinal names are still in use, e.g. Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) and Diptera (flies, mosquitoes, midges, and gnats). In virology , the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses 's virus classification includes fifteen taxomomic ranks to be applied for viruses , viroids and satellite nucleic acids : realm , subrealm , kingdom , subkingdom, phylum , subphylum , class, subclass, order, suborder, family, subfamily , genus, subgenus , and species. There are currently fourteen viral orders, each ending in

858-564: The precursor of the currently used International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants . In the first international Rules of botanical nomenclature from the International Botanical Congress of 1905, the word family ( familia ) was assigned to the rank indicated by the French famille , while order ( ordo ) was reserved for a higher rank, for what in the 19th century had often been named

891-572: The prey with their spiked raptorial forelegs. Some ground and bark species pursue their prey in a more active way. For example, members of a few genera such as the ground mantises Entella , Ligaria , and Ligariella run over dry ground seeking prey, much as tiger beetles do. Some mantis species such as Euantissa pulchra can discriminate between different types of prey, and approached spiders mimicking non-aggressive ant species much more than spiders that mimicked aggressive ant species. Order (biology) What does and does not belong to each order

924-502: The rank of family (see ordo naturalis , ' natural order '). In French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson 's Familles naturelles des plantes (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word famille (plural: familles ) was used as a French equivalent for this Latin ordo . This equivalence was explicitly stated in the Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle 's Lois de la nomenclature botanique (1868),

957-462: The raptorial tibia is more muscular than that of a similar-sized mantis and bends back farther in preparation for shooting out to grasp prey. Mantises have large, triangular heads with a beak-like snout and mandibles . They have two bulbous compound eyes , three small simple eyes, and a pair of antennae . The articulation of the neck is also remarkably flexible; some species of mantis can rotate their heads nearly 180°. The mantis thorax consists of

990-491: The suffix -virales . Chaeteessidae See text Chaeteessidae is a family of praying mantises . It contains a single extant genus, Chaeteessa , native to South America which is thought to be the most primitive and earliest diverging lineage of living mantises. Fossil genera are known from the Paleogene of Eurasia and North America. Indeterminate species are also known from French Oise amber , dating to

1023-418: Was adopted by Systema Naturae 2000 and others. In botany , the ranks of subclass and suborder are secondary ranks pre-defined as respectively above and below the rank of order. Any number of further ranks can be used as long as they are clearly defined. The superorder rank is commonly used, with the ending -anae that was initiated by Armen Takhtajan 's publications from 1966 onwards. The order as

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1056-426: Was further split in 2002; at present, only some 80 out of 430 known genera are mantids, the rest are in other families. Over 2,400 species of mantis in about 430 genera are recognized. They are predominantly found in tropical regions, but some live in temperate areas. The systematics of mantises have long been disputed. Mantises, along with stick insects ( Phasmatodea ), were once placed in the order Orthoptera with

1089-413: Was that proposed by Beier in 1968, recognizing eight families, though it was not until Ehrmann's reclassification into 15 families in 2002 that a multiple-family classification became universally adopted. Klass, in 1997, studied the external male genitalia and postulated that the families Chaeteessidae and Metallyticidae diverged from the other families at an early date. However, as previously configured,

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