and see text Liassochrysidae Mantispidae (/mænˈtɪspədiː/), commonly known as mantidflies, mantispids, mantid lacewings, mantisflies or mantis-flies, is a family of small to moderate-sized insects in the order Neuroptera.

[2] As their names suggest, members of the group possess raptorial forelimbs similar to those of the praying mantis, a case of convergent evolution.

They are usually green, brown, yellow, and sometimes pink, and have four membranous wings which may sometimes be patterned (especially in wasp mimicking species) but are usually clear.

All of the major groups of hunting spiders are attacked by spider-boarding mantispids; the egg sacs of web-building species are also entered by egg-sac penetrators.

The Early Jurassic Prohemerobius dilaroides (the type species of the "Prohemerobiidae" assemblage) as well as the Late Permian Permantispa emelyanovi (of the just as likely paraphyletic "Permithonidae") were suggested to possibly represent ancestral mantidflies.

Mantispidiptera are diminutive insects, apparently neuropterans of some sort, perhaps Hemerobiiformia; their exact affiliation cannot at present be determined because of their odd apomorphies, though they are unlikely to have been mantidflies.