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The mantises or Mantodea are an order of insects that contains over 2,400 species and about 430 genera in 15 families, by far the largest family being 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 have fore legs that are greatly enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey; their upright posture, while remaining stationary with fore arms folded, has led to the name praying mantises. They are mostly ambush predators, but a few ground-dwelling species actively pursue their prey. They normally live for about a year; in cooler climates, the adults lay eggs in autumn, and die. The eggs overwinter, protected by their hard capsule, and hatch in the spring. Females sometimes practice sexual cannibalism, eating their mates after copulation, or occasionally decapitating the males just before or during mating. The closest relatives of mantises are the termites and cockroaches (Blattodea), the three groups being included in the superorder Dictyoptera. Mantises are sometimes confused with stick insects (Phasmatodea), other elongated insects such as grasshoppers (Orthoptera), or other insects with raptorial fore legs such as mantisflies (Mantispidae). 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. ==Taxonomy and evolution== 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 the cockroaches (now Blattodea) and rock crawlers (now Grylloblattodea). Kristensen (1991) combined the Mantodea with the cockroaches and termites into the order Dictyoptera, suborder Mantodea. The name ''mantodea'' is formed from the Ancient Greek words (''mantis'') meaning "prophet", and (''eidos'') meaning "form" or "type". It was coined in 1838 by the German entomologist Hermann Burmeister. The order is occasionally called the mantes, using a Latinized plural of Greek ''mantis''. The name mantid properly refers only to members of the family Mantidae, which was, historically, the only family in the order. The other common name, praying mantis, applied to any species in the order, but in Europe mainly to ''Mantis religiosa'', comes from the typical "prayer-like" posture with folded fore limbs.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=National Geographic Society )〕 The classification most commonly adopted is that proposed by Beier in 1968. He divided the order into eight families. 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, the Mantidae and Thespidae are both polyphyletic, so the Mantodea will have to be revised. The earliest mantis fossils are about 135 million years old, from Siberia.〔 Fossils of the group are rare: by 2007, only about 25 fossil species were 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-long ''Santanmantis axelrodi'', described in 2003; as in modern mantises, the front legs were adapted for catching prey. Well-preserved specimens yield details as small as 5 μm through X-ray computed tomography.〔 Because of the similar raptorial fore legs, mantidflies may be confused with mantises. This similarity is an example of convergent evolution; mantidflies do not have the leathery forewings of mantises. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mantis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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