Blattoidea is a superfamily of cockroaches and termites in the order Blattodea. There are about 17 families and more than 4,100 described species in Blattoidea.[1][2]
The 12 families of termites are sometimes considered members of the suborder Isoptera, but recent phylogenetic analysis places them within the cockroach superfamily Blattoidea. Within Blattoidea, the termites are grouped under the epifamilyTermitoidae.[3][4]
The great coal deposits of the CarboniferousPeriod have been attributed in part to the lack of wood-consuming insects such as blattoids, which do not appear in the fossil record until the late Carboniferous.[5][6]
Families
These 17 families belong to the superfamily Blattoidea:
^Beccaloni, George W.; Eggleton, Paul (2013). Zhang, Z.-Q. (ed.). "Order Blattodea. In: Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness". Zootaxa. 3148. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3703.1.10.
^Beccaloni, G.W. (2019). "Superfamily Blattoidea Latreille, 1810". Cockroach species file online, Version 5.0. Retrieved 2019-04-13.
^Shaw, Scott R. Planet of the bugs: evolution and the rise of insects. Chicago. pp. 74–75. ISBN 9780226163758.
^McGhee, George R. Carboniferous giants and mass extinction: the late Paleozoic Ice Age world. New York. p. 99. ISBN 9780231180979.
Further reading
Atkinson, Thomas H.; Koehler, Philip G.; Patterson, Richard S. (1991). "Catalog and Atlas of the Cockroaches of North America North of Mexico". Miscellaneous Publications of the Entomological Society of America. 78: 1–85. ISBN 978-9991575872. ISSN 0071-0717.