Matthew Connors, a Ph.D. candidate at James Cook University in Australia<\/a>, led the effort to revisit the taxonomy of Kongobatha, a little-studied group of praying mantises known as snake mantises for the snake-like patterns on their wings. They\u2019re also referred to as leaf-planking mantises, because they press their bodies against leaves to camouflage.<\/p>\n The blending in helps because they are both predators of insects, including flies and mosquitoes, and prey themselves. \u201cThey have this special organ right on their chest that is a sensory thing, and it helps them flatten themselves down really nicely against a leaf, so that they\u2019re really hard for a predator to see,\u201d Connors said in a news release.<\/a><\/p>\n Previously only two species of Kongobatha were known: one from Australia and another from Papua New Guinea. Now, there are three more, named K. serpens, K. spinosistyla and K. rufilinea.<\/p>\n To describe these three species, Connors collected new specimens of the mantises and sourced others from Australian and international museums and private collections.<\/p>\n He examined them under a microscope, focusing on male anatomical features called styli, which are a pair of small appendage-like structures located on the end of the abdomen, and may function in mating, although this remains a \u201cmystery,\u201d Connors told Mongabay by email.<\/p>\n The styli of snake mantises have many spines on them, Connors said. However, the pattern and number of spines differed between the species. \u201cIn one of our new species [K. spinosistyla], there are up to 60 spines crammed in on the surface of this structure \u2026 no other mantis species in the world has these types of structures,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The researchers also found that K. papua, previously only documented in Papua New Guinea, also occurs in Australia.<\/p>\n Apart from using museum specimens, the team also relied on photographs of mantises posted on citizen science platforms such as iNaturalist<\/a> to help examine the insects\u2019 geographic distribution, habitat use and behavior in the wild, Connors said.<\/p>\n The researchers learned, for example, one of the new mantises, K. serpens, is attracted to lights at night and is a common resident in suburban gardens in Brisbane and Sydney. It seems \u201cto have adapted really well to living with humans,\u201d Connors said in the release.<\/p>\n All four of the Australian Kongobatha mantises appear to be doing well. However, K. rufilinea, is known from only a single specimen collected in Papua New Guinea more than 50 years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot protect what we don\u2019t know about, but I have hope that this species is still out there, and formally naming and describing the species is the first step to ensuring its survival,\u201d Connors said.<\/p>\n Banner image: Male and female Kongobatha spinosistyla in North Queensland. Image by Maurice Allan.<\/p>\n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780904407_249_07799caa7cb21fcc7a5a3924abeb83cbd823d2475a9b7f7441f9db8cd14f391f.png\")
<\/p>\n