Mantodea {order} - Arthropoda; Insecta;

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 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 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 the female mantis as a femme fatale. Mantises are among the insects most commonly kept as pets. full article at Wikipedia

Specimen Records:	11,609	Public Records:	5,798
Specimens with Sequences:	10,060	Public Species:	606
Specimens with Barcodes:	9,086	Public BINs:	1,245
Species:	735
Species With Barcodes:	531
Species List - Progress		Access Published & Released Data

Specimen Depositories:	Sequencing Labs:

Collected from 67 countries. Top 20: Show All Countries

Costa Rica 806 Portugal 144 Malaysia 41 South Africa 611 Trinidad and Tobago 92 Ecuador 40 Australia 387 Argentina 87 Peru 39 Gabon 333 Kenya 67 Canada 34 China 328 Namibia 65 Central African Republic 34 United States 272 Thailand 56 Iran 32 Pakistan 199 Tanzania 46