Revue suisse de Zoologie 120 (3): 373-403; septembre 2013 Synopsis of the Neotropical mantid genus Pseudacanthops Saussure, 1870, with the description of three new species (Mantodea: Acanthopidae) Francesco LOMBARDO 1 , Salvatrice IPPOLITO 1 & Julio RIVERA 2 1 Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Division Animal Biology “M. La Greca”, University of Catania, via Androne 81, 95124 Catania, Italy. E-mail; lombafra@unict.it; ippolito@unict.it 2 University of Toronto, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Mailing address: Royal Ontario Museum, Department of Natural History (Entomology), 100 Queen’s Park, M5S 2C6, Toronto, ON, Canada. E-mail: julior@rom.on.ca. Synopsis of the Neotropical mantid genus Pseudacanthops Saussure, 1870, with the description of three new species (Mantodea: Acantho- pidae). - The constitutive members of the genus Pseudacanthops Saussure are re-examined. The genus now includes six species: R caelebs (Saussure) (Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala), P spinulosus (Saussure) (French Guyana, Guyana, Venezuela), P lobipes La Greca & Lombardo (Peru, Bolivia, Brazil), P centralis n. sp. (Nicaragua, Panama), P clorindae n. sp. (Peru) and P huaoranianus n. sp. (Ecuador). The species Pseudacanthops angulata (Lichtenstein) is considered an objective synonym of Acanthops fuscifolia (Olivier). A key to species of Pseudacanthops (males) is also provided. Keywords: Acanthopidae - Acanthopinae - Pseudacanthops - new species - Neotropic area. INTRODUCTION The genus Pseudacanthops Saussure, 1870 is exclusively found in the Neotropical region and is distributed in warm and humid environments between the 18°N and 16°S parallels. Pseudacanthops has received little taxonomic treatment in the past; the number of species reported in the literature varies from three (Otte & Spearman 2005) to four (Ehrmann 2002) and despite of this reduced number of described species, they are very difficult to distinguish. Giglio-Tos (1927) recognized and keyed three valid species: P angulata (Lichtenstein, 1802), P caelebs (Saussure, 1869), P spinulosus (Saussure, 1870). Travassos (1945) and Terra (1995) reduced the number of the species to two, because they considered P angulata as a synonym for Acanthops falcataria (Goeze, 1778). La Greca & Lombardo (1997) provided general remarks on the species included in this genus, considering P angulata as a valid species; in the same article they described the new species P lobipes. Agudelo Rondón et al. (2007) listed the following four species and their distribution: P angulata Manuscriptaccepted03.04.2013