New record of Liturgusa maya Saussure & Zehntner, 1894 (Mantodea, Liturgusidae) in the Province of Limón (Costa Rica) and revision of its distribution along the country

Abstract

The order Mantodea, re-established by LEGENDRE et al. (2015), is a group of polyneopteran insects distributed throughout tropical and subtropical habitats of the world (PATEL & SINGH, 2016). Praying mantises diversity has become frequently unnoticed probably because of their sedentary and highly cryptic lifestyle (RIVERA & SVENSON, 2014): they use strategies such as mimicry or special aggressive resemblance for avoiding their own predators while securing their prey (EDMUNDS & BRUNNER, 1999). Although it is known that they play a very important role as predators and insect controllers in the ecosystems they live in (PATEL et al., 2016), our understanding about their geographical patterns of distribution is still poor (RIVERA & SVENSON, 2014).