33 
PLATH IX. 
DESCRIPTION OF A NEW GENUS OF MANTIDEOUS ORTHOPTERA. 
—_e—— 
Ir is amongst the Orthoptera that we find some. of the most 
striking and ugly-formed insects; this is especially the case with 
many of the soothsayer or praying mantides; such as M. strumaria, 
Linn., M. eancellata, Fabr., ete.; in which we find the prothorax 
developed on each side into a very broad thin membrane of variable 
form, resembling a leaf. These species, except in respect to this 
prothoracic membrane, agree in general character with the genuine 
species of the restricted genus Mantis; and consequently we find 
that Professor Burmeister has rejected the generic name of Cheera- 
dodis, which M. Serville had proposed for them, using it only as a 
sectional or subgenerie name, and giving the subgeneric names of 
Rhombodera and Craurusa to other allied analogous species. 
Other species in the same family are distinguished by having a 
small membranous appendage at the extremity of the four poste- 
rior thighs ; but in these the head is either cornuted or tubercled, 
as in Empusa, Blepharis, Vates, Burm., ete. 
The species figured in the accompanying plate are intermediate 
between these two groups, agreeing with Vates, &e., in the foliolets 
at the extremity of the hind thighs, and with Cheeradodis, &c., in 
the crown of the head not being cornuted, and in the dilated 
membrane of the prothorax. I accordingly form them into the 
genus 
DEROPLATYS. 
Caput vertice transverso inermi plano. Oculi rotundati. Antenne gracillime. 
Prothorax elongatus, membrana maxima forme varie utringue instructus. Abdo- 
men breve segmentis apicalibus latis et ad latera lobatis. Pedes quatuor postici 
graciles longi, femoribus ad apicem postice membrana parva instructis. Ale et 
tegmina forme varie. Insecta Asiatica. 
Species I. Deroplatys desiccata, Westw. (in Jardine’s Naturalist’s Library, Insects, Introd. 
ple 9:) 
Fusca, prothorace (tab. nostr. 9, fig. 3) membrana maxima tenuissima (posticé utrinque valdé 
incisa) instructo ; tegminibus brevibus latis, apice obtusis subtus versus apicem oculo 
magno albo, pupilla nigra; alis nigris apice et costa fuscis. Long. corp. 3 unc. Expans. 
alar. 33 unc. 
Habitat in Malacca. In Mus. D. F. W. Hope. 
Obs. Larva thoracem ejusdem forme possidet. 
D 
