Mantodea is comprised of 2,300 described species distributed in 434 genera. The family is dispersed across the planet in habitats ranging from dense wet tropical to dry African scrubveld. While many morphological characters used to delimitate groups appear to be synapomorphies a large number of taxonomically vital characters appear homoplasious on a molecular phylogeny. To further address character evolution, we completed a molecular phylogenetic analysis using seven genes (12S rDNA, 16S rDNA, 18S rDNA, 28S rDNA, Histone III, Cytochrome Oxidase I & II) across a large taxon sampling (93% of families and ~92% of subfamilies). Only five of the 14 included families appear to be monophyletic and only 30% of the subfamilies are resolved as monophyletic.

Many mantid groups established in the traditional taxonomy are found to be paraphyletic on our molecular tree, but our results are more consistent with biogeography than traditional taxonomy. For example, the tree trunk dwelling family Liturgusidae consists of two lineages in the new- and old-world which have independently converged on a tree trunk dwelling ecomorph, and the family as a whole is paraphyletic. Likewise, convergent ecomorph evolution appears to be present in grass dwelling mantids, ground dwelling mantids and mantids exhibiting environmental mimicry.

Our data suggest that the divergence and subsequent adaptive radiation of Mantodea produced convergent ecomorphs in geographically separate regions (Africa, South America, India, Australia, etc.). The over reliance on features associated with the adaptive radiation and subsequent ecomorph convergence in mantid lineages has led to a classification which includes unnatural groupings.