Discovery and formal description of the female of Microphotina Beier, 1935 (Mantodea: Photinaidae), with an updated key to species and remarks on the role of Citizen Science in advancing Mantodea biodiversity studies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
French Guiana (FG) is renowned as one of the most extensively studied and recognized Neotropical regions for Mantodea. Despite comprehensive historical and contemporary collections, several taxa remain known from only one sex. This is the case for the females of Microphotina Beier, 1935 (Photinaidae, Microphotinini), whose elusiveness has prevented full characterization of this little-known lineage of foliage-dwelling praying mantises. In this study, we report and describe the female of Microphotina viridescens (Chopard, 1912), discovered in FG through citizen science efforts. We detail critical diagnostic features to recognize the female of M. viridescens and distinguish it from those of Chromatophotina Rivera, 2010, while reinterpreting wing and genital traits of males to enhance its recognition. The egg case is also described for the first time and compared with those of Chromatophotina awajun Rivera, 2010 and other closely related taxa. We complement taxonomy with general observations on the life history of M. viridescens, reporting habitat preferences, cryptic strategy, parental care, and aspects of its postembryonic development. Taxonomic and systematic considerations are provided along with an updated identification key to Microphotina spp. based on males. Finally, we briefly discuss the pivotal role that citizen science can play in advancing praying mantis biodiversity research.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".