Gender dictates camouflage strategy in this newly identified praying mantis group

Adult females and males in a newly identified genus of Latin American praying mantises have evolved sharply different camouflage strategies, according to a Cleveland Museum of Natural History-led study published in the journal ZooKeys.

Adult males of the new genus retain the stubby, stick-like body configuration and brown coloration they have used as nymphs, whereas adult females, whose bodies grow to be considerably larger to maximize egg production, transform their appearance to mimic a leaf. They change to green, while their forewings become larger and more rounded compared to the male’s, with veins that simulate a leaf structure.

Image 1 Adult Female

Although adult females are nearly two inches long, the members of this new mantis genus had escaped scientific recognition until recently, in part because the disparity in camouflage tactics made classification difficult.

This shrewdness inspired the name for the new mantis species: Hondurantemna chespiritoi. The genus name (Hondurantemna) derives from Honduras, where the first female specimen was found, in combination with Antemna, a Neotropical mantis to which the new lineage is closely related.

Meanwhile, the species name, chespiritoi, is a nod to the late Mexican comedian Roberto Gómez Bolaños, known as Chespirito, or Little Shakespeare. One of Bolaños’ TV characters, a goofy superhero called the Red Grasshopper, was fond of saying “¡No contaban con mi astucia!” — Spanish for “They didn’t count on my cleverness!” — when he defeated bad guys.

“I grew up watching that TV show in Brazil”, says the study’s lead author, Cleveland Museum of Natural History entomologist and Case Western Reserve University biology Ph.D. candidate Henrique Rodrigues.

“The first male specimen of the new mantis species was from Mexico, like Bolaños,” he explains. “And the signature line of Bolaños’ Red Grasshopper character kind of reminded me of the fact that you had this pretty large species of praying mantis that no one had found for many years.”Image 2 Adult Male dorsal view Credit Henrique Rodrigues

Adult female and male specimens of the mantis species were in separate museum collections in Paris, France and San Francisco, California, but had remained unidentified and their relationship unrecognized for more than two decades because of their dissimilar appearances.

Entomologist Julio Rivera, Ph.D., spotted the large green female mantis in the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris and brought it to the attention of Cleveland Museum of Natural History Curator of Invertebrate Zoology Gavin Svenson, Ph.D., an international expert on praying mantises. Dr. Svenson later saw the small brown male mantis in the California Academy of Sciences and noted that the two insects, though dissimilar in color and size, had body features that hinted they might be members of the same Antemninae sub-family.

Yet, adaptation to similar environments can cause unrelated organisms to develop similar features. This phenomenon, called convergent evolution, can complicate the process of sorting out connections on the praying mantis family tree.

Dr. Svenson is leading a research project to more accurately reclassify the massive praying mantis family tree using DNA testing and insights from the insects’ body form and features – their morphology. He has consolidated many of the country’s major mantis collections at the Cleveland museum, thus building the Western Hemisphere’s largest assemblage of the insects to aid this effort.

The final pieces of the puzzle that allowed the Cleveland researchers to identify the new mantis lineage arrived by chance. Neil Reid, Ph.D., a lecturer at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, contacted Dr. Svenson, wondering if he wanted to examine a group of unknown praying mantises that Dr. Reid had gathered in a Honduran cloud forest.

The specimens Dr. Reid provided included two adult females and some male and female nymphs in various stages of development. The adult females looked the same as the female from the Paris museum. The male nymphs closely resembled the adult male from San Francisco. Having the nymphs let the researchers see the separate camouflage strategies the male and female mantises adopted as they matured.

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Rodrigues conducted DNA tests that confirmed the mantises all represented the same genus and species, which had not been recognized before. The analysis also showed where this new mantis group, or taxon, fit on the complex mantis family tree: verifying that it belonged in the Antemninae subfamily.

“The recognition of H. chespiritoi shows the important role genetics can play in classifying insect relationships. It also highlights the value of museum collections,” Dr. Svenson says.

“When people ask us, ‘Why do you collect things?’, it’s because we still have a shockingly small concept of the biodiversity that’s out there,” Dr. Svenson says. “Museums are the places that hold that biological knowledge, and we’re pulling information out of them all the time.”

 

Original Source

Rodrigues HR, Rivera J, Reid N, Svenson GJ (2017) An elusive Neotropical giant, Hondurantemna chespiritoi gen. n. & sp. n. (Antemninae, Mantidae): a new lineage of mantises exhibiting an ontogenetic change in cryptic strategy. ZooKeys 680: 73-104. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.680.11162

A new species and genus of ‘horned necked’ praying mantis from a French museum collection

While studying the insect collection of the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, France, two American scientists uncovered a small, leaf-dwelling praying mantis with unique features collected from Madagascar in 2001. Its distinctive “horned neck” and flattened, cone-like eyes, as well as the location from where it was found, led the researchers to assign the insect to a new genus and species. The study is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Lead author Sydney Brannoch and co-author Dr. Gavin Svenson, both of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Case Western Reserve University, were working on a research project in their laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio, when Brannoch discovered the undescribed insect among the French collection on loan to them at the time. To determine the insect’s identity, the researchers first investigated the specimen’s locality, Tampolo, Madagascar, where it had been collected from the leaves of an unrecorded tree. When compared to other praying mantis species from this region, they found that this individual had many peculiarities that set it apart.

After comparing and analyzing specimens from various museums, the Cleveland scientists created a new genus for the praying mantis. They selected the genus name Cornucollis to reflect the horn-like projections, which extend from the insect’s neck. The team described and named the new mantis species Cornucollis masoalensis after the locality where the mantis was originally collected. It belongs to the subfamily Tropidomantinae, which is comprised of smaller, usually green mantises that appear to live on broad-leafed plants.

“Identifying a unique praying mantis hidden among other species was unexpected and exciting,” said lead author Sydney Brannoch, a Case Western Reserve University graduate student working under the direction of Dr. Gavin Svenson at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “There are untold numbers of species new to science sitting in cabinets and cases within natural history museums around the world. Often these specimens have been overlooked, in some cases for centuries. The discovery of this new praying mantis ultimately highlights the need for continued research in museum collections.”

“Museum collections hold hidden treasures of biodiversity,” said co-author Dr. Gavin Svenson, curator of invertebrate zoology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and adjunct assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University. “A closer look can reveal species never before recognized as unique.” Dr. Svenson supported the study as part of his ongoing research to classify praying mantises based on evolutionary relationships.

The newly described leaf-dwelling mantis, Cornucollis masoalensis, measures about 24 millimeters in length, which is small for a praying mantis. It has distinctive speckled patches on its head. The new mantis is pale in color with opaque, well-developed wings. Based on external appearance, the researchers believe that this species dwells on the undersides of leaves, a unique ecological niche occupied by morphologically similar, closely related species.

The scientists suggest further field surveys could provide science with additional knowledge about the new species and genus, including the description of a female individual.

This study was done as part of Dr. Svenson’s broader research project, which is focused on the evolutionary patterns of relationship, distribution, and complex features of praying mantises. His current research project aims to align new sources of relationship evidence (DNA sequence data) with morphology and other features to create a new and accurate classification system for praying mantises that reflects true evolutionary relationships.

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Original source:

Brannoch SK, Svenson GJ (2016) A new genus and species (Cornucollis gen. n. masoalensis sp. n.) of praying mantis from northern Madagascar (Mantodea, Iridopterygidae, Tropidomantinae). ZooKeys 556: 65-81. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.556.6906

 

Additional information:

About The Cleveland Museum of Natural History:

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, incorporated in 1920, is one of the finest institutions of its kind in North America. It is noted for its collections, research, educational programs and exhibits. The collections encompass more than 5 million artifacts and specimens, and research of global significance focuses on 10 natural science disciplines. The Museum conserves biological diversity through the protection of more than 7,300 acres of natural areas. It promotes health education with local programs and distance learning that extends across the globe. Its GreenCityBlueLake Institute is a center of thought and practice for the design of green and sustainable cities. Its website is: http://www.cmnh.org.