| Santanmantis Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Specimen MB.I.2068 | |
 | |
| Life restoration (Note: the spines on the second set of legs have been considered questionable by other authors) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Mantodea |
| Family: | † Santanmantidae Grimaldi 2003 |
| Genus: | † Santanmantis Grimaldi, 2003 |
| Species: | †S. axelrodi |
| Binomial name | |
| †Santanmantis axelrodi Grimaldi, 2003 | |
Santanmantis is an extinct genus of mantises, the sole genus in the family Santanmantidae. The only species, Santanmantis axelrodi , is known from the Crato Formation of Brazil, dating to the late Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous. [1] [2] [3] It is amongst the most primitive known lineages of mantis. [4] Like other mantises, the forelegs are modified into spined raptorial appendages. When describing a new specimen in 2017, Hörnig, Haug and Haug proposed that the second set of legs also had spines similar to the forelegs, and also served a raptorial function, but that they were not visible in the fossil due to being broken off. [5] However a response to this paper criticised this assumption, finding that it had little evidence from the fossil itself or from living mantises. [6]
