Dictyoptera (from

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

δίκτυον ''diktyon'' "net" and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing") is an insect

superorder Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized ...

that includes two extant orders of polyneopterous insects: the order

Blattodea Blattodea is an order (biology), order of insects that contains cockroaches and termites. Formerly, termites were considered a separate order, Isoptera, but genetics, genetic and molecular evidence suggests they evolved from within the cockroach ...

(

termite Termites are a group of detritivore, detritophagous Eusociality, eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of Detritus, decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, Plant litter, leaf litter, and Humus, soil humus. They are dist ...

s and

cockroach Cockroaches (or roaches) are insects belonging to the Order (biology), order Blattodea (Blattaria). About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are well-known Pest (organism), pests. Modern cockro ...

es together) and the order

Mantodea Mantises are an Order (biology), order (Mantodea) of insects that contains List of mantis genera and species, over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids") ...

(mantises). All modern Dictyoptera have short

ovipositor The ovipositor is a tube-like organ used by some animals, especially insects, for the laying of eggs. In insects, an ovipositor consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages. The details and morphology of the ovipositor vary, but typica ...

s and typically lay oothecae. The oldest fossils of Dictyoptera from the Late

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

, referred to as " roachoids" have long ovipositors and did not lay oothecae. The oldest modern oothecae-laying dictyopterans date to the Late

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

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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''. According to genetic evidence, the closest living relatives of the Dictyoptera are the orders

Phasmatodea The Phasmatodea (also known as Phasmida or Phasmatoptera) are an Order (biology), order of insects whose members are variously known as stick insects, stick bugs, walkingsticks, stick animals, or bug sticks. They are also occasionally referred ...

, Mantophasmatodea, and Grylloblattodea. If the Dictyoptera are considered a superorder these other orders might be included in it. Evolutionary relationships based on Eggleton, Beccaloni & Inward 2007 and modified by Evangelista et al. 2019, are shown in the

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

: The cockroach families Anaplectidae, Lamproblattidae, and

Tryonicidae The Tryonicidae are a family of cockroaches. Biodiversity and distribution Two genera containing 17 species are currently confirmed as belonging to this family. Table 1: Number of species of Tryonicidae in each region in which it is present (A ...

are not shown but are placed within the superfamily Blattoidea. The cockroach families Corydiidae and

Ectobiidae Ectobiidae (formerly Blattellidae) is a family of the order Blattodea (cockroaches). This family contains many of the smaller common household pest cockroaches, among others. They are sometimes called wood cockroaches. A few notable species inclu ...

were previously known as the Polyphagidae and Blattellidae. 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

superfamily Umenocoleoidea by Vršanský ''et al.''. Oxyopsis sp

Classification and phylogeny

References

Further reading