Cryptocercus - brown-hooded cockroaches | |
---|---|
Cryptocercus clevelandi | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Arthropoda |
Class: | Insecta |
Order: | Blattodea |
Superfamily: | Blattoidea |
Epifamily: | Cryptocercoidae |
Family: |
Cryptocercidae Handlirsch, 1925 |
Genus: |
Cryptocercus Scudder, 1862 |
Species | |
Cryptocercus is a genus of Dictyoptera (cockroaches and allies) and the sole member of its own family Cryptocercidae. [1] Species are known as wood roaches or brown-hooded cockroaches. These roaches are subsocial, their young requiring considerable parental interaction. They also share wood-digesting gut bacteria types with wood-eating termites, and are therefore seen as evidence of a close genetic relationship, that termites are essentially evolved from social cockroaches. [2]
Cryptocercus is especially notable for sharing numerous characteristics with termites, and phylogenetic studies have shown this genus is more closely related to termites than it is to other cockroaches. [3] These two lineages probably shared a common ancestor in the early Cretaceous. [4]
Found in North America and (especially temperate) Asia, there are 12 known species:
Cryptocercus - brown-hooded cockroaches | |
---|---|
Cryptocercus clevelandi | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Arthropoda |
Class: | Insecta |
Order: | Blattodea |
Superfamily: | Blattoidea |
Epifamily: | Cryptocercoidae |
Family: |
Cryptocercidae Handlirsch, 1925 |
Genus: |
Cryptocercus Scudder, 1862 |
Species | |
Cryptocercus is a genus of Dictyoptera (cockroaches and allies) and the sole member of its own family Cryptocercidae. [1] Species are known as wood roaches or brown-hooded cockroaches. These roaches are subsocial, their young requiring considerable parental interaction. They also share wood-digesting gut bacteria types with wood-eating termites, and are therefore seen as evidence of a close genetic relationship, that termites are essentially evolved from social cockroaches. [2]
Cryptocercus is especially notable for sharing numerous characteristics with termites, and phylogenetic studies have shown this genus is more closely related to termites than it is to other cockroaches. [3] These two lineages probably shared a common ancestor in the early Cretaceous. [4]
Found in North America and (especially temperate) Asia, there are 12 known species: