Cryptocercus
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 - 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 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
- 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.
- Daegan Inward, George Beccaloni, and Paul Eggleton (2007) Death of an order: a comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study confirms that termites are eusocial cockroaches
- 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.
- 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