Chaeteessidae is a family of praying mantises. It contains a single extant genus, Chaeteessa, native to South America which is thought to be the most primitive and earliest diverging lineage of living mantises. Fossil genera are known from the Paleogene of Eurasia and North America.
Genera
Extant
- Chaeteessa
Extinct
- †Arvernineura Piton, 1940 Menat Formation, France, Paleocene (Selandian)
- †Louispitonia Schubnel and Nel, 2019 (=Archaeophlebia Piton 1940) Menat Formation, France, Paleocene (Selandian)
- †Lithophotina Cockerell, 1908 Florissant Formation, Colorado, United States, Eocene
- †Megaphotina Gratshev and Zherikhin, 1993 Bol'shaya Svetlovodnaya, Primorsky, Russia, Eocene
Indeterminate species are also known from French Oise amber, dating to the Eocene (Ypresian)
See also
- List of mantis genera and species