Praying Mantids (Mantodea)

There is some debate about the most appropriate taxonomic position of praying mantids (or mantises). They are considered orthopteroid insects because they appear to have much in common with cockroaches, grasshoppers, crickets, and stick insects, all of which used to be lumped together with mantids within the order Orthoptera. Morphological and molecular evidence suggests that mantids are, in fact, most closely related to Blattodea (cockroaches) and Isoptera (termites), but most authors feel that the 1,900 or so species of mantids are sufficiently different from these groups to be classified separately: Order Dictyoptera, Suborder Mantodea. There are eight families and 28 subfamilies in this suborder:

• Amorphoscelididae, containing two subfamilies from Africa and Australia

• Chaeteessidae, with only one Neotropical genus, Chaeteessa

• Empusidae, consisting of eight genera in Africa and Asia

• Eremiaphilidae, ground-dwelling mantids of Africa and Asia

• Hymenopodidae, with three subfamilies,...