Scherrer Marcus V, Agudelo Antonio A
Instituto Federal do Espírito Santo, Santa Teresa, ES, Brazil; Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Vitória, ES, Brazil..
Zootaxa. 2019 Feb 12;4555(2):283-286. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.4555.2.10.
Thespidae is the most diverse family among the Neotropical Mantodea, currently containing 33 genera and 146 species of praying mantises (Wieland Svenson, 2018). Miobantia Giglio-Tos, 1917 are small, dark coloured mantids, often found in low vegetation of humid forests near the South American Atlantic coast, from the Brazilian Northeast to the Argentine Patagonia (Scherrer, 2014). Males are active fliers, while females, apterous, are often found in leaf litter or in plants close to the ground (Scherrer, 2014; Santos et al., 2018). Despite their commonness in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest the genus received little taxonomic attention, yet had a complicated nomenclatural history. Scherrer (2014) provided a comprehensive taxonomic and nomenclatural revision of Miobantia after incorporating both molecular and morphological data to reorganize the group, resulting in the description of four new species, detailed identification keys, illustrations, association of conspecific sexes, and maps for all known species. The most recent contribution to the taxonomy of the genus was the addition of Metathespis precaria Piza, 1968 as a junior synonym of Miobantia rustica (Fabricius, 1781) (Agudelo Rivera, 2015).
枝背螳科是新热带区螳螂目中种类最多的科，目前包含33个属和146种螳螂（维兰德·斯文森，2018年）。米氏螳属（Miobantia）由吉廖 - 托斯于1917年建立，是小型深色螳螂，常见于南美洲大西洋沿岸潮湿森林的低矮植被中，分布范围从巴西东北部到阿根廷巴塔哥尼亚（舍雷尔，2014年）。雄性善于飞行，而雌性无翅，常出现在落叶层或贴近地面的植物上（舍雷尔，2014年；桑托斯等人，2018年）。尽管该属在巴西大西洋森林很常见，但在分类学上受到的关注较少，其命名历史也很复杂。舍雷尔（2014年）在整合分子和形态学数据以重新组织该类群后，对米氏螳属进行了全面的分类学和命名修订，结果描述了四个新物种，提供了详细的鉴定检索表、插图、同种性别关联以及所有已知物种的分布图。该属分类学的最新贡献是将1968年皮扎描述的濒危原枝背螳（Metathespis precaria）作为米氏粗螳（Miobantia rustica， Fabricius，1781）的次异名（阿古德洛·里韦拉，2015年）。
