Cryptocercus

Cryptocercus
Brown-hooded cockroaches
Cryptocercus garciai
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Blattaria/Dictyoptera
Family: Polyphagidae
Genus: Cryptocercus
Scudder, 1862
Species

Cryptocercus kyebangensis
Cryptocercus clevelandi
Cryptocercus darwini
Cryptocercus garciai
Cryptocercus matilei
Cryptocercus primarius
Cryptocercus punctulatus
Cryptocercus relictus
Cryptocercus wrighti

Cryptocercus is a genus of Dictyoptera (cockroaches and allies) in the family Polyphagidae, of which this genus is the only member. Species are known as wood roaches or brown-hooded cockroaches. They are subsocial xylophagous insects, found in North America and Asia.

There are 9 known species.

Cryptocercus is especially notable for sharing numerous characteristics with termites, and phylogenetic studies have shown that this genus is more closely related to termites than it is to other cockroaches. Cryptocercus sp., apart from having a common ancestor with termites, have been placed within the Polyphagidae based on molecular analysis, and they are even closer relatives of Therea sp. (Grandcolas, 1996 and later).

References

  • Nalepa, C.A., Byers, G.W., Bandi, C. and Sironi, M. 1997. "Description of Cryptocercus clevelandi from the Northwestern United States, molecular analysis of bacterial symbionts in its fat body and notes on biology, distribution and biogeography." Ann. Entomol. Soc. Amer. 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 [1]


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