The adult terminology follows Brake (2000), the larval terminology follows Courtney et al. (2000). Information on the colour of the microtomentum is provided. However, these colours change with the direction of the light, and there are several different kinds of shades of brown, for example, which are difficult to specify. Therefore, colour must be treated carefully. In addition to colour, information on the presence and density of the microtomentum is provided. Structures can be shiny (without microtomentum), subshiny (without or with very sparse microtomentum), slightly microtomentose (with sparse microtomentum, structure still visible), or microtomentose (covered in microtomentum, structure not visible). Usually colour and chaetotaxy of females were only noted if it differed from that of the males, except for the colour of the halteres and the tergites, which were always noted. For study of the terminalia, male and female abdomens were cleared in hot 10% aqueous potassium hydroxide solution, neutralized in glacial acetic acid and washed in 96% ethanol. Male abdomens were studied in glycerine jelly and were preserved in glycerine in a microvial with the specimen. Female abdomens were either embedded in Euparal or in glycerine.
Chaetotaxy: For orbital setae a “+” denotes the presence of an additional posterior seta of different inclination, e.g. “2+1”; for frontal setae it denotes the presence of additional anterior setae. For dc and prsc the “+” denotes the presence of setae anterior to the transverse suture. For prs the “+” denotes the presence of shorter setae medial to the main, longest, seta. For some setae, like orbital setae and prs, the presence of shorter setae has been cited as "2+0.6", meaning that the third seta is only 0.6 times the length of the other two setae. Setae that are less than 0.5 times as long as the main seta(e) are usually not cited. For the fore femur "normal setulose" means that the density of setae on the posterior side is similar to the density on mid and hind femur, while "densely setulose" means that there are more setae.
Measurements: Body length (anterior margin of head without antenna to tip of abdomen) should be treated as minimal body length because specimens are often somewhat curved. The size of the notch in the middle of the posterior eye margin and of the emargination, which extends from the middle down to the lower end of the posterior eye margin, is indicated by the number of ommatidia (close to the notch) that cover the same width. Since the size of the ommatidia differs interspecifically and also on the position within the eye, this is a very rough measurement and is only useful to differentiate between very narrow and wide notches. To measure the amount of convergence between wing veins R4+5 and M, the distance between the apices of R2+3 and R4+5 was divided through the distance between the apices of R4+5 and M. For the M-ratio, the ultimate section of vein M was divided by the penultimate section. The length of the surstylus was measured from the apex to the point where it connects with the anterior margin of the epandrium; the width was measured at its narrowest section, and for the dilation the widest section was divided through the narrowest section.
Species descriptions were generated from a matrix using a script. Missing data in the matrix were marked with a '?'. Although not readily 'readable', sentences including question marks were left in the description to alert to the fact of missing data. Most missing data originated in the fact that the condition of the specimens was poor due to old age and/or missing parts or setae. Characters which occurred only in few species are cited under the section 'Special characters'.
For a few species label data from primary types are quoted verbatim as they appear on the label, with a slash (/) denoting the end of a label. Clarifying comments are included within square brackets. The condition and dissections of specimens were only cited for holo- and lectotypes. Longitude and latitude coordinates were obtained for the locality in which each specimen was collected. If unavailable directly from specimen labels, longitude and latitude were estimated using gazetteers (Alexandria Digital Library (http://middleware.alexandria.ucsb.edu/client/gaz/adl/index.jsp), Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/tgn/), GEOnet Names Server (http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html)). If coordinates for a specific locality were unavailable, the coordinates for the next higher category were used. Adjustments like "12.9 km N" were omitted. For old localities the current name was cited followed by the label spelling in square brackets, e.g. "Tao-yuan [=Toyenmongai]".
Biogeographic regions follow the standards of the BioSystematic Database of World Diptera (http://www.diptera.org/Diptera/names/BDWDstan.pdf).
Numbers quoted with individual specimens starting with 321… are unique identifiers in my personal Mantis database (Naskrecki 2008) and are cited on the identification label on each specimen. Unique identifiers generated by the respective museums are cited for primary types, if present.
Specimens of uncertain identity or nearly matching the description were added to the material section. The former are often females which can't be matched with the males with certainty. This material is cited to alert future researches to its presence and the need for further studies.
(Brake 2009)