Acanthops parafalcata

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Kris Anderson

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Species treatment for Acanthops parafalcata complete.

The first known discovery of this uncommon species was by W.E. Broadway around the year 1900, in which two male specimens were collected in Trinidad. These specimens were sent to Bruner in 1906, who identified them as belonging to Acanthops and possessing similarities in size and form to A. godmaniBruner noted in his 1906 report that the specimens’ “much darker color, however, seems to indicate their distinctness.”  Due to this observed variation, Bruner suggested the possibility that the two Acanthops specimens that were collected in Trinidad represented an undescribed species but he took no taxonomic action at the time. Following these notations, the Caribbean Acanthops population had been regarded as A. falcata for over one hundred years.  In 2004, Lombardo & Ippolito conducted a comparative analysis of the mainland South American population of A. falcata with those found in Trinidad.  Marked differences were discovered within the male genitalia between the two populations, thereby prompting the designation of a new species for those Acanthops found in the Caribbean.  Lombardo & Ippolito designated the Trinidad species as parafalcata to denote the otherwise similar morphology to falcata.   

Follow updates on this project at:

“Praying Mantises of the Caribbean” 

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Praying-Mantises-of-the-Caribbean

A. parafalcata map.jpg

 
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