There are probably about 600 species of Mantidae known; they are distributed over all the warmer parts of the earth, but there are none in the cooler regions. Europe possesses some twelve or fourteen species, most of them confined to the Mediterranean sub-region; a single species, Mantis religiosa, is frequently found in Central France, and has been recorded as occurring as far north as Havre. Although no species is a native of Britain, it is not difficult to keep them alive here. Denny records[[186]] that an egg-case of a Mantis was sent from Australia to England, and that the hatching of the eggs was completed after its arrival. The young fed readily on flies, and we are informed that in the neighbourhood of Melbourne, where this Mantis is plentiful, specimens are placed by the citizens on the window-blinds of their houses, so that the rooms may be cleared from flies by means of the indefatigable voracity of the Mantis.
Fig. 147.—Stenophylla cornigera. Brazil. (After Westwood.)
The geological record as to Mantidae is very meagre and unsatisfactory. The genus Mantis is said to occur in amber, and Heer has referred to the same genus an ill-preserved fossil from the upper Miocene beds of Central Europe; a fragment of a hind wing found in the Jurassic strata of Siberia has been assigned to the family; and until recently Lithomantis from the Carboniferous beds of Scotland was considered to belong to Mantidae. Scudder, however, has rejected it therefrom, placing it in the Neuropteroid division of Palaeodictyoptera, and Brongniart, adding another species to the genus from the Carboniferous strata in France, proposed to treat the two as a distinct family, which he called Palaeomantidae.[[187]] This naturalist has, however, since renewed his study[[188]] of these Insects, has become convinced that they have no relations with existing Mantidae, and has consequently removed them to the family Platypterides in the Order Neuroptera.
Six tribes of Mantidae are recognised by Brunner and de Saussure.
Table of the tribes of Mantidae:—
1. Anterior tibiae with the outer edge unarmed beneath or only furnished with very minute tubercles. (Pronotum not longer than the anterior coxae.) Tribe 1. Amorphoscelides. (Fig. 141, Mantoidea luteola.)
1′. Anterior tibiae with the outer edge spinose beneath.
2. Anterior femora having the inner edge armed beneath with equal spines, or with spines in which only the alternate are smaller. Antennae of the male simple, rarely unipectinate.
3. Tibiae and also the intermediate and hind femora even above.