Cryptocercus

Genus of cockroaches

Cryptocercus - brown-hooded cockroaches
Cryptocercus clevelandi
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Blattodea
Superfamily: Blattoidea
Epifamily: Cryptocercoidae
Family: Cryptocercidae
Handlirsch, 1925
Genus: Cryptocercus
Scudder, 1862
Species

See text

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]

Species

Found in North America and (especially temperate) Asia, there are 12 known species:

  • Cryptocercus clevelandi Byers, 1997
  • Cryptocercus darwini Burnside, Smith, Kambhampati, 1999
  • Cryptocercus garciai Burnside, Smith, Kambhampati, 1999
  • Cryptocercus hirtus Grandcolas, Bellés, 2005
  • Cryptocercus kyebangensis Grandcolas, 2001
  • Cryptocercus matilei Grandcolas, 2000
  • Cryptocercus meridianus Grandcolas, Legendre, 2005
  • Cryptocercus parvus Grandcolas, Park, 2005
  • Cryptocercus primarius Bey-Bienko, 1938
  • Cryptocercus punctulatus Scudder, 1862
  • Cryptocercus relictus Bey-Bienko, 1935
  • Cryptocercus wrighti Burnside, Smith, Kambhampati, 1999

References

  1. ^ Beccaloni, G. & P. Eggleton. (2013). Order Blattodea. In: Zhang, Z.-Q.(Ed.) Animal Biodiversity: An Outline of Higher-level Classification and Survey of Taxonomic Richness (Addenda 2013). Zootaxa 3703(1) 46-48.
  2. ^ Daegan Inward, George Beccaloni, and Paul Eggleton (2007) Death of an order: a comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study confirms that termites are eusocial cockroaches
  3. ^ Djernæs, M., et al. 2012. Phylogeny of cockroaches (Insecta, Dictyoptera, Blattodea), with placement of aberrant taxa and exploration of out-group sampling. Systematic Entomology 37(1): 65–83. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3113.2011.00598.x.
  4. ^ Li, Xin-Ran (2022). "Phylogeny and age of cockroaches: a reanalysis of mitogenomes with selective fossil calibrations". Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift. 69 (1): 1–18. doi:10.3897/dez.69.68373. ISSN 1860-1324.

Further reading

  • Nalepa, C.A., Byers, G.W., Bandi, C. and Sironi, M. 1997. "Description of Cryptocercus clevelandi (Dictyoptera: Cryptocercidae) from the Northwestern United States, molecular analysis of bacterial symbionts in its fat body, and notes on biology, distribution and biogeography." Annals of the Entomological Society of America. 90:416-424.
  • Burnside, C.A., P.T. Smith and S. Kambhampati, 1999. "Three New Species of the Wood Roach, Cryptocercus (Blattodea: Cryptocercidae), from the Eastern United States." The World Wide Web Journal of Biology 4:1
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Extant Blattodea families
Corydioidea
Blaberoidea
  • Ectobiidae (wood cockroaches)
  • Blaberidae (giant cockroaches)
Blattoidea
Blattoidae
Xylophagodea
Cryptocercoidae
  • Cryptocercidae (brown-hooded cockroaches)
Termitoidae
(termites)
Classification is based on Inward et al. (2007). Italic are paraphyletic groups.
Taxon identifiers
Cryptocercus
Cryptocercidae
Authority control databases: National Edit this at Wikidata
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