| Cryptocercus - brown-hooded cockroaches | |
|---|---|
| |
| Cryptocercus clevelandi | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Blattodea |
| Superfamily: | Blattoidea |
| Epifamily: | Cryptocercoidae |
| Family: | Cryptocercidae Handlirsch, 1925 |
| Genus: | Cryptocercus Scudder, 1862 |
| Species | |
Cryptocercus is a genus of Dictyoptera (cockroaches and allies) and the sole member of its own family Cryptocercidae.[1] Species are known as wood roaches or brown-hooded cockroaches. These roaches are subsocial, their young requiring considerable parental interaction. They also share wood-digesting gut bacteria types with wood-eating termites, and are therefore seen as evidence of a close genetic relationship, that termites are essentially evolved from social cockroaches.[2]
Cryptocercus is especially notable for sharing numerous characteristics with termites, and phylogenetic studies have shown this genus is more closely related to termites than it is to other cockroaches.[3] These two lineages probably shared a common ancestor in the early Cretaceous.[4]
