Manticora (beetle)

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Manticora
Manticora.scabra.jpg
Male Manticora scabra
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Family: Cicindelidae
Tribe: Manticorini
Genus: Manticora
Fabricius, 1781 [1]

Manticora (often misspelled Mantichora (Latin term for "manticore") following an unjustified spelling change in 1837) is a genus of tiger beetles that is endemic to Africa. Its members are the largest of the family. All species are darkly colored and flightless. Males usually have exaggerated mandibles compared to the females, used for clasping during copulation.

Contents

Taxonomy

This genus was among the first formally described by a pupil of Carl Linnaeus, Johan Christian Fabricius, in 1781. [2] The name Manticora comes from the ancient Persian for the legendary man-eating manticore. The first species of Manticora described was M. tuberculata , originally described by Charles De Geer in 1778 in the Linnean genus Carabus, to which it is only distantly related as presently defined. When Fabricius established Manticora he designated the species Manticora maxillosa, a junior synonym of M. tuberculata, as the type species.

Subsequently, numerous authors have described a number of additional species, subspecies, and variants, and the exact delimitation of taxa is highly disputed, with experts claiming as few as five species [3] and as many as 13, [2] though it seems the latter number is highly artificial, and not based upon objective criteria or DNA analyses. [4]

Species

Manticora contains the following species (under the most ambitious scheme; [2] alternative classifications only recognize as few as 5 taxa [3] ):

Museum specimen of Manticora sp. from Mozambique. Manticorini sp.JPG
Museum specimen of Manticora sp. from Mozambique.
Manticora tuberculata EB 1911 Manticora tuberculata.png
Manticora tuberculata

In African folklore manticoras are evil creatures, often accused of being responsible for many bad things. According to legend they are doombringers. Some tribes even personify Death as a manticora whose mandibles are an equivalent to the European scythe of death (Mareš, Lapáček, 1980).

In Jules Verne's novel Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen , it is a Manticora beetle which helps Cousin Bénédict to escape from imprisonment, when the aforementioned, unguarded in a garden, follows the beetle. Since the beetle escapes from him by flying, it is possible that it is one of Verne's "scholar's jokes" (that is, a joke which only a scientist may recognize; see the entry Jules Verne) (Neff, 1978).

See also

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  1. Tinnea aethiopicaKotschy ex Hook.f. - widespread from Mali to Somalia south to Mozambique; naturalized in Trinidad & Tobago
  2. Tinnea antiscorbuticaWelw. - DRC, Zambia, Angola
  3. Tinnea apiculataRobyns & Lebrun - eastern Africa from Rwanda to Mozambique
  4. Tinnea barbataVollesen - Eswatini, northern South Africa
  5. Tinnea barteriGürke - western Africa
  6. Tinnea benguellensisGürke - Angola
  7. Tinnea coeruleaGürke - DRC, Zambia, Angola
  8. Tinnea eriocalyxWelw. - DRC, Angola, Botswana, Namibia
  9. Tinnea galpiniiBriq. - Eswatini, Mozambique, South Africa
  10. Tinnea gossweileriRobyns & Lebrun - Angola
  11. Tinnea gracilisGürke - Tanzania to Zambia
  12. Tinnea mirabilis(Bullock) Vollesen - Tanzania
  13. Tinnea physalisE.A.Bruce - Tanzania
  14. Tinnea platyphyllaBriq. - DRC
  15. Tinnea rhodesianaS.Moore - South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Mozambique
  16. Tinnea somalensisGürke ex Chiov. - Ethiopia
  17. Tinnea vesiculosaGürke - Tanzania, Malawi
  18. Tinnea vestitaBaker - Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Botswana
  19. Tinnea zambesiacaBaker - Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique
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Manticora may refer to:

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References

  1. ↑ GBIF: Manticora
  2. 1 2 3 Mareš, Jaroslav (2002). Manticora: a monograph of the genus (Coleoptera, Cicindelidae, Manticorini). Taita Publishers. ISBN   978-8090273443.
  3. 1 2 Oberprieler, Rolf G.; Arndt, Erik (2000). "On the biology of Manticora Fabricius (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Cicindelinae), with a description of the larva and taxonomic notes" (PDF). Tijdschrift voor Entomologie. 143 (1–2): 71–89. doi: 10.1163/22119434-99900039 . Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
  4. ↑ South African National Biodiversity Institute: assessment of Manticora conservation status
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