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23 Orders of Insects: Grylloblattodea

Photo of a Grylloblattodea
Grylloblattodea [Photo: Alex Wild, CC0, Wikimedia Commons].

 

Cladogram highlighting Grylloblattodea.
Cladogram highlighting Grylloblattodea. Adapted from Gullan, PJ & Cranston PS (2014). The insects: an outline of entomology (5th ed.). Wiley Blackwell.

Grylloblattodea

Grylloblattodea

  • ice crawlers or rock crawlers
  • name means ‘cricket-roach’; ‘gryll’ from the Greek meaning cricket and ‘blatta’ meaning cockroach
  • only 25 described species worldwide; discovered around 1906, described in 1915
  • second smallest order of insects
  • not found in Australia or the southern hemisphere: restricted to western North America, central to east Asia & Japan
  • extremophiles: live under leaf litter, rocks, on glaciers, snowbanks in cold environments, between 1-4°C; slow development
  • omnivorous but appear to feed on dead arthropods and organic material
  • often nocturnal

Characters of Grylloblattodea

Adults

  • Medium-sized (20-35mm), soft-bodied, elongate & pale
  • prognathous, mandibulate mouthparts, compound eyes reduced or absent; ocelli absent; multisegmented filiform antennae
  • wingless; cursorial legs with large coxae
  • abdomen has segmented cerci; female has a short ovipositor

Immatures

  • Immature stages (nymphs) resemble small adults

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