Manticora (beetle)


Manticora is a genus of tiger beetles that is endemic to Africa. Its members are the largest of the family. All species are nocturnal, black, and flightless. Males usually have exaggerated mandibles compared to the females, used for clasping during copulation.

Taxonomy

This genus was among the first formally described by a pupil of Carl Linnaeus, Johan Christian Fabricius, in 1781. The name Manticora comes from the ancient Persian for the legendary man-eating manticore. The first species of Manticora described was M. tuberculata, originally described by Charles De Geer in 1778 in the Linnean genus Carabus, to which it is only distantly related as presently defined. When Fabricius established Manticora he designated the species Manticora maxillosa, a junior synonym of M. tuberculata, as the type species.
Subsequently, numerous authors have described a number of additional species, subspecies, and variants, and the exact delimitation of taxa is highly disputed, with experts claiming as few as five species and as many as 13, though it seems the latter number is highly artificial, and not based upon objective criteria or DNA analyses.

Species

Manticora contains the following species :Manticora congoensis Péringuey, 1888 Manticora gruti Boucard, 1892 Manticora holubi Mareš, 2002 Manticora hrdyi Mares, 2019 Manticora imperator Mares, 1976 Manticora latipennis Waterhouse, 1837 Manticora livingstoni Laporte, 1863 Manticora mygaloides J.Thomson, 1857 Manticora scabra Klug, 1849 Manticora sichelii J.Thomson, 1857 Manticora skrabali Mares, 2000 Manticora tibialis Boheman, 1848 Manticora tuberculata Manticora tyrannus Mares, 2019 Manticora werneri Mares, 2000

Manticoras in folklore and popular culture

In African folklore manticoras are evil creatures, often accused of being responsible for many bad things. According to legend they are doombringers. Some tribes even personify Death as a manticora whose mandibles are an equivalent to the European scythe of death.
In Jules Verne's novel Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen, it is a manticora beetle which helps Cousin Bénédict to escape from imprisonment, when the aforementioned, unguarded in a garden, follows the beetle. Since the beetle escapes from him by flying, it is possible that it is one of Verne's "scholar's jokes" .
While commonly identified as a stag beetle, the insect depicted on the cover art of Mezzanine appears to belong to the genus ''Manticora.''