There has been talk among the stomatopod researchers of the world about developing a comprehensive site that would have descriptions, ranges and habitat information as well as photographs of as many of the 500+ species as possible. We are currently planning to submit a grant proposal to support this activity. However, given the current funding climate in Washington, I'm not holding my breath. My guess is that this is two or three years away. I have photographs of about 80 species and will certainly contribute them to the effort if and when the site takes off.
One of the greatest problems with doing this kind of site is that stomatopods are often very color polymorphic. I could put up half a dozen photographs of P. ciliata color morphs and most people would assume that they were different species. On the other hand, many groupls show very little variation from species to species. The key characters often do not show up in whole animal image. You need fine detail of the telson, etc. And finally, some species are totally cryptic and can only be distinguished genetically. Neogonodactylus bredini and N. wennerae from the Caribbean are clearly different species, but if you handed one each to me, I couldn't tell you which was which without running the DNA.
Roy
Roy
