Fauna / Mantodea

Clasificación científica
Reino: Animalia
Filo: Arthropoda
Clase: Insecta
Orden: Mantodea
Familia: Mantidae

Spanish:
Orden de insectos comúnmente conocidos como mantis, mamboretas, santa teresas o rezaderas. Los Mantodea pertenecen al grupo de los Polyneoptera, el cual incluye a los órdenes de insectos ortopteroides. Al mismo tiempo, los Mantodea pertenecen al superorden Dictyoptera, conformado también por los Blattodea (cucarachas) e Isoptera (termitas), órdenes de insectos con los que se encuentra más cercanamente relacionado.
Los Mantodea ocurren en regiones tropicales y subtropicales de todo el mundo. Aproximadamente 2450 especies son conocidas y estas ocurren en una gran variedad de hábitas terrestres, desde la arena del desierto hasta el dosel del bosque tropical. Todas las especies son carnívoras y su dieta consiste en otros artrópodos, aunque especies de gran tamaño pueden añadir pequeños vertebrados a su dieta, tales como lagartos, colibríes y roedores. Los Mantodea son también reconocidos por sus habilidades crípticas, pudiendo confundirse perfectamente con su entorno inmediato, ya sea por el color o la forma de su cuerpo.

English:
The order Mantodea (or Praying mantis) consists of approximatively 2,300 species, of which a majority are in the family Mantidae. The closest relatives of mantids are the orders Isoptera (termites) and Blattaria (cockroaches), and these three groups together are sometimes ranked as an order rather than a superorder.
Mantids are notable for their large size and nimble reflexes. Their diet usually consists of living insects, including flies and aphids; larger species have been known to prey on small lizards, frogs, birds, snakes, and even rodents. Most mantids are ambush predators, waiting for prey to stray too near to them. The mantis then lashes out at remarkable speed. Some ground and bark species, however, pursue their prey rather quickly. A mantid's prey is caught and held securely with its grasping, spiked forelegs.
Mantids are masters of camouflage and make use of protective coloration to blend in with the foliage, both to avoid predators themselves, and to better snare their victims. Some species in Africa and Australia are able to turn black after a molt following a fire in the region to blend in with the fire ravaged landscape (fire melanism). In addition to this adaptation, they have adapted to not only blend with the foliage, but to mimic it, appearing as leaves, sticks, blades of grass, flowers or even stones. Their diet and coloration frequently change as the mantid grows; mantids are among the hemimetabolic insects - those whose immature stages are similar to the adults, primarily differing in the lack of wings and functional reproductive organs.

French:
Les mantoptères (Mantodea) sont un ordre d'insectes.
Créé par les classifications phylogénétiques récentes, il constitue, avec l'ordre des blattoptères (Blattaria), l'ancien ordre des dictyoptères (Dictyoptera).
Liste des Familles
* Chaeteessidae
* Metallyticidae
* Mantoididae
* Amorphoscelidae
* Eremiaphilidae
* Hymenopodidae
* Mantidae
* Empusidae