
Choeradodis is a genus of praying mantises with common names such as shield mantis, hood mantis (or hooded mantis), and leaf mantis (or leafy mantis) because of their extended, leaf-like thoraces. The distinguishing characteristic of Choreododis from which it takes its common names is a laterally expanded thorax. This adaptation for the purpose of camouflage, as well as a rounded wing case and a habit of staying relatively flattened, aid its leaf mimicry. Tiny liverworts, lichens and fungi have been found growing on the pronotum and wing case of many Choeradodis mantids; these appear to be opp
Peruvian Shield Mantis
GENUS
via GBIF
Choeradodis is a genus of praying mantises with common names such as shield mantis, hood mantis (or hooded mantis), and leaf mantis (or leafy mantis) because of their extended, leaf-like thoraces. The distinguishing characteristic of Choreododis from which it takes its common names is a laterally expanded thorax. This adaptation for the purpose of camouflage, as well as a rounded wing case and a habit of staying relatively flattened, aid its leaf mimicry. Tiny liverworts, lichens and fungi have been found growing on the pronotum and wing case of many Choeradodis mantids; these appear to be opportunistic growths rather than an example of coevolution with the mantids to afford extra camouflage.
==Distribution== right|thumb|Choeradodis rhombicollis in [[Costa Rica]]
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).