Liturgusidae

Rivera, Julio, 2010, A historical review of praying mantid taxonomy and systematics in the Neotropical Region: State of knowledge and recent advances (Insecta: Mantodea), Zootaxa 2638, pp. 44-64 : 52

Liturgusidae

This family is a rather distinctive assemblage of highly cryptic, trunk-dwelling, and fast-running species. Three genera of the subfamily Liturgusinae are known in the Neotropics, with Liturgusa Saussure as the most diverse with about 14 species. This genus is in need of urgent revision since the taxonomic literature on this genus is extremely confusing and barely helps to distinguish between species. Hagiomantis Saussure & Zehntner is also in need of revision. It includes six species and most of the literature on these species is old and uninformative. Finally, the mainly Caribbean genus Gonatista Saussure was first reviewed by Caudell (1912), but there is a more recent update by Lombardo & Perez-Gelabert (2004). It includes five species whose relationship to the remaining new world Liturgusidae needs to be re-evaluated.