Mantophasmatidae

Mantophasmatidae is a family of carnivorous wingless insects in southern Africa which are placed within the order or suborder Mantophasmatodea. They were discovered in 2001. They are the sister group of the Grylloblattidae, classified in the order or suborder Grylloblattodea.

Arillo and Engel have combined the Grylloblattodea and Mantophasmatodea into a single order, Notoptera, with the two groups ranked as suborders. Alternatively, Grylloblattodea and Mantophasmatodea are considered orders of a clade Xenonomia.

The most common vernacular name for this order is gladiators, although they also are called rock crawlers, heelwalkers, mantophasmids, and colloquially, mantos. Their modern centre of endemism is western South Africa and Namibia (Brandberg Massif), although the modern relict population of Tanzaniophasma subsolana in Tanzania and Eocene fossils suggest a wider ancient distribution.

Mantophasmatodea are wingless even as adults, making them difficult to identify. They resemble a cross between praying mantises and phasmids, and molecular evidence indicates that they are most closely related to the equally enigmatic group Grylloblattodea. Initially, the gladiators were described from old museum specimens that originally were found in Namibia (Mantophasma zephyra) and Tanzania (M. subsolana), and from a 45-million-year-old specimen of Baltic amber (Raptophasma kerneggeri).

Live specimens were found in Namibia by an international expedition in early 2002; Tyrannophasma gladiator was found on the Brandberg Massif, and Mantophasma zephyra was found on the Erongoberg Massif.

Since then, a number of new genera and species have been discovered, the most recent being two new genera, Kuboesphasma and Minutophasma, each with a single species, described from Richtersveld in South Africa in 2018.

Mantophasmatids are wingless carnivores. During courtship, they communicate using vibrations transmitted through the ground or substrate.

The classification of Mantophasmatodea in Arillo & Engel (2006) recognizes numerous genera, including fossils, in a single family Mantophasmatidae: