Phyllothelys Wood-Mason, 1876

Schwarz, Christian J. & Konopik, Oliver, 2014, An annotated checklist of the praYing mantises (Mantodea) of Borneo, including the results of the 2008 scientific expedition to Lanjak Entimau Wildlife SanctuarY, Sarawak, Zootaxa 3797 (1), pp. 130-168 : 143

Phyllothelys Wood-Mason, 1876

= Phyllothelis Beier, 1935 (er r. des cr.)

= Kishinouyea Ôuchi, 1938

= Kishinouyeum Ôuchi, 1938

A taxonomically difficult genus with variable systematic placement: Harpaginae ( Rehn 1903), Acromantinae ( Giglio-Tos 1915a, 1919, 1927, Werner 1922, 1926), Hymenopodidae Phyllotheliinae ( Wang 1993; its now synonym, Kishinoueyum, was placed among Vatidae Vatinae in the same work), Mantinae Phyllotheliini ( Beier 1935c), Mantidae Phyllotheliinae ( Beier 1964, 1968, Mukherjee et al. 1995, Ehrmann 2002, Otte & Spearman 2005, the latter two placing Kishinouyeum under Mantidae Vatinae ) and Phyllotheliidae ( Yang & Wang 1999). However, the molecular phylogeny presented by Svenson & Whiting (2009) corroborates its placement among Hymenopodidae . Eighteen incompletely decribed species occurring in S and SE Asia are known, most are distinguished mainly by the shape of the process on the vertex ( Ehrmann & Roy 2009). Arboricolous.

Phyllothelys sp.

Distribution. Borneo: Sabah: Poring Hot Springs ( Helmkampf et al. 2007); Kalimantan: Paku ( Giglio-Tos 1915a).

Remarks. Giglio-Tos (1915a) assigned two males from Borneo and Java to a female he described on that occasion as Phyllothelys decipiens Giglio-Tos, 1915 , but Ehrmann & Roy (2009) suggest that the males and the female are not conspecific. The only other Bornean specimen known in the literature is the unidentified male mentioned in Helmkampf et al. (2007), leaving the sole species known so far from the island without specific epithet.