Termopsidae is an extinct family of termites in the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

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 ...

. The five extant genera formerly included in Termopsidae ('' Archotermopsis'', '' Hodotermopsis'', '' Porotermes'', '' Stolotermes'', and '' Zootermopsis'') now belong in their own distinct families, leaving only extinct taxa in Termopsidae. Several prehistoric genera are placed herein, known only from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s. Since only a small part of the diversity of dampwood termites survives, it is rather difficult to assign these to subfamilies. Several seem to represent very ancient members of the family; they may be quite basal Termopsidae, so it is indeed unwarranted to place them into a subfamily at all.

Genera

* '' Asiatermes'' ** '' Asiatermes reticulatus'' (Cretaceous, Aptian; Lushangfen Formation, China) * '' Cretatermes'' ** '' Cretatermes carpenteri'' (Cretaceous, Cenomanian; Redmond Formation, Canada) * '' Huaxiatermes'' ** '' Huaxiatermes huangi'' (Cretaceous, Aptian; Lushangfen Formation, China) * '' Lutetiatermes'' ** '' Lutetiatermes priscus'' (Cretaceous, Cenomanian; Bezonnais amber, France) * '' Mesotermopsis'' ** '' Mesotermopsis incompleta'' (Cretaceous, Aptian; Lushangfen Formation, China) ** '' Mesotermopsis lata'' (Cretaceous, Aptian; Lushangfen Formation, China) * '' Paleotermopsis'' ** '' Paleotermopsis oligocenicus'' (Oligocene, Chattian; Niveau du gypse d'Aix Formation, France) * '' Parotermes'' ** '' Parotermes insignis'' (Eocene, Priabonian; Florissant Formation, USA) * '' Termopsis'' ** '' Termopsis bremii'' (Eocene, Priabonian;

Baltic Amber Baltic amber or succinite is amber from the Baltic region, home of its largest known deposits. It was produced sometime during the Eocene epoch, but exactly when is controversial. It has been estimated that this forested region provided the re ...

, Europe) ** '' Termopsis gracilipennis'' (Oligocene, Rupelian; Salt Formation, Germany) ** '' Termopsis mallaszi'' (Miocene, Sarmatian; Tompa, Romania) ** '' Termopsis transsylvanica'' (Miocene, Sarmatian; Tompa, Romania) ** '' Termopsis ukapirmasi'' (Eocene, Priabonian;

, Europe) * '' Valditermes'' – provisionally placed here ** '' Valditermes brenanae'' (Cretaceous, Hauterivian; Weald Clay, England)

Nomenclature

The group was originally described as a subfamily, Termopsinae, by

Nils Holmgren Nils Frithiof Holmgren (September 28, 1877 – September 7, 1954) was a Swedish zoologist and comparative anatomist. He was professor of zoology at Stockholm University from 1921 to 1944. He took a special interest in the taxonomy of termites. ...

in 1911, and was raised to the

taxonomic rank In biology, taxonomic rank (which some authors prefer to call nomenclatural rank because ranking is part of nomenclature rather than taxonomy proper, according to some definitions of these terms) is the relative or absolute level of a group of or ...

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

by Pierre-Paul Grassé in 1949.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Termopsidae Termites Prehistoric insect families Taxa named by Pierre-Paul Grassé