Four lines of Dutch and a lost type

Toxodera maculata Ouwens, 1913 was described from Java in just four lines of Dutch, with a single three-quarter drawing. The type was later lost, and for decades the species was confused with T. denticulata, to which it is not even especially close. In 1935 Lieftinck redescribed it from another Javan male, which he designated a plesiotype; Roy (2009) treats that specimen as having the value of a neotype, and sank Toxodera vana Yang, 1997, described from Yunnan, as a synonym.

According to Roy (2009), males measure 110-124 mm, with a 41-47 mm pronotum and 44-51 mm tegmina. Females reach 131 mm, but Roy saw only 2 against 15 males.

How to recognise it: eyes with a short point, mid and hind femora with wide, irregularly sinuous leaf-like lobes whose apical extension bends forward, and a large, ragged median lobe on tergite 5. Its closest relative, T. pfanneri Roy, 2009, is smaller, with a stronger eye point and narrower femoral lobes; both live in West Malaysia and Laos.

Range: Thailand, Laos, West Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and China (Yunnan). Males from northern Thailand have recently been recorded, some at light traps (Tarapipattanakun 2025).

The four males in these plates come from my collection: three from Tapah Hills, Perak (Peninsular Malaysia) and one from East Java (Indonesia).

Do you have maculata from other localities, or a female? Write to me at hola@mantodealab.com or on Instagram.

Plates

References

Photos and specimens: coll. E. Candela. Roy, R. (2009). Révision des Toxoderini sensu novo (Mantodea, Toxoderinae). Revue suisse de Zoologie 116(1): 93-183. Lieftinck, M. A. (1935). Treubia 15(2): 169-174. Tarapipattanakun, P. (2025). Thailand Natural History Museum Journal 19(1): 77-97.