Dictyoptera (from
Greek δίκτυον diktyon "net" and πτερόν pteron "wing") is an insect
superorder that includes two extant
orders of polyneopterous insects: the order
Blattodea (
termites and
cockroaches together)[1] and the order
Mantodea (mantises). All modern Dictyoptera have short
ovipositors and typically lay
oothecae. The oldest fossils of Dictyoptera from the Late
Carboniferous, referred to as "
roachoids" have long
ovipositors and did not lay oothecae. The oldest modern oothecae-laying dictyopterans date to the Late
Triassic.[2]
Classification and phylogeny
The use of the term Dictyoptera has changed over the years, and while largely out of use for much of the last century, it is becoming more widely used. It has usually been considered a superorder, with Isoptera, Blattodea and Mantodea being its three orders. In some classifications, however, Dictyoptera is shifted to order status and in others the order Isoptera has been subsumed under Blattodea while retaining Dictyoptera as a superorder. Regardless, in all classifications the constituent groups are the same, just treated at different rank. Termites and cockroaches are very closely related, with ecological and molecular data pointing to a relationship with the cockroach genus Cryptocercus.[3][4]
According to genetic evidence, the closest living relatives of the Dictyoptera are the orders
Phasmatodea,
Mantophasmatodea, and
Grylloblattodea. If the Dictyoptera are considered a superorder these other orders might be included in it.[5]
Evolutionary relationships based on Eggleton, Beccaloni & Inward 2007 and modified by Evangelista et al. 2019, are shown in the
cladogram:[6][7] The cockroach families
Anaplectidae,
Lamproblattidae, and
Tryonicidae are not shown but are placed within the superfamily Blattoidea. The cockroach families
Corydiidae and
Ectobiidae were previously known as the Polyphagidae and Blattellidae.[8] The cladogram also shows the family
Alienopteridae (originally assigned to its own order "Alienoptera") as sister to Mantodea, but it was subsequently reassigned to the extinct
Blattodea superfamily
Umenocoleoidea by Vršanský et al..[9]
^Cameron, Stephen L.; Barker, Stephen C.; Whiting, Michael F. (January 2006). "Mitochondrial genomics and the new insect order Mantophasmatodea". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 38 (1): 274–279.
doi:
10.1016/j.ympev.2005.09.020.
PMID16321547.
^Beccaloni, George W.; Eggleton, Paul (23 December 2011). "Order Blattodea Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1882. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness". Zootaxa. 3148 (1): 199–200.
doi:
10.11646/zootaxa.3148.1.37.
^Peter Vršanský; Günter Bechly; Qingqing Zhang; Edmund A. Jarzembowski; Tomáš Mlynský; Lucia Šmídová; Peter Barna; Matúš Kúdela; Danil Aristov; Sonia Bigalk; Lars Krogmann; Liqin Li; Qi Zhang; Haichun Zhang; Sieghard Ellenberger; Patrick Müller; Carsten Gröhn; Fangyuan Xia; Kyoichiro Ueda; Peter Vďačný; Daniel Valaška; Lucia Vršanská; Bo Wang (2018). "Batesian insect-insect mimicry-related explosive radiation of ancient alienopterid cockroaches". Biologia. 73 (10): 987–1006.
doi:
10.2478/s11756-018-0117-3.
S2CID52270212.