The Praying Mantis or Mantodea is an order of insects that contains over 2,400
species and about 430 genera in 15 families worldwide in temperate and tropical
habitats. Most of the species are in the family Mantidae.
The name mantid refers only to members of the family Mantidae, which was,
historically, the only family in the Order, but with 14 additional families
recognized in recent decades, this term can be confusing. The other common name,
often applied to any species in the order, is "praying mantis", because of the
typical "prayer-like" posture with folded fore-limbs, although the eggcorn
"preying mantis" is sometimes used in reference to their predatory habits. In
Europe and other regions, however, the name "praying mantis" refers to only a
single species, Mantis religiosa. The closest relatives of mantises are the
termites and cockroaches. They are sometimes confused with phasmids or stick/leaf
insects and other elongated insects such as grasshoppers and crickets, or other
insects with raptorial forelegs such as mantisflies.
Mantises have two grasping, spiked 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 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. Located at the base of the femur are a set of discoidal spines, usually
four in number, but ranging from zero to as many as five depending on the species.
These spines are preceded by a number of tooth-like tubercles, which, along with 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 made of between four and five segments and ending in a two-toed claw with
no arolium and used as a walking appendage.
