''Vespamantoida wherleyi'' is a species of

praying mantis Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They ha ...

that mimics a

wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

. It was discovered in 2013 at a research station near the Amazon River in northern Peru. The discovery resulted in erecting a new genus, ''

Vespamantoida ''Vespamantoida'' is a genus of praying mantises in the family Mantoididae. The genus was erected in 2019 and the name was derived from the Latin word ''vespa'' which means wasp and ''Mantoida'' referring to the mantis Mantises are an or ...

''. This mantis has a red/orange colored body and black pattern. Besides the coloration, it has the body shape of and displayed walking and antenna movements similar to a wasp. This mantis is closely related to Mantoida toulgoeti as both species have a distinct foreleg

synapomorphy In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have ...

. *

References

Mantoididae Biota of Peru Insects described in 2019 {{Mantodea-stub