Nocticolidae is a small family in the order

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

(cockroaches). It consists of only 32 known species in 9 genera. They are found in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Most live in cave habitats, although a few are associated with

termite Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes (eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blattode ...

s. Cave adapted species are known from the

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

aged

Burmese amber Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. The ...

, making them the oldest extant cavernicolous organisms.

Genera

The family includes the following genera: * '' Alluaudellina'' Chopard, 1932 * '' Cardacopsis'' Karny, 1924 * '' Cardacus'' Strand, 1928 * '' Metanocticola'' Roth, 1999 * ''

Nocticola ''Nocticola'' is a genus of cockroaches in the family Nocticolidae distributed in Africa, south-east Asia and Australia. Nocticola are different from every other cockroach in that they are not infected with '' Blattabacterium cuenoti''. This make ...

'' Bolívar, 1892 * '' Pholeosilpha'' Chopard, 1958 * '' Spelaeoblatta'' Bolívar, 1897 * '' Typhloblatta'' Chopard, 1924 * '' Typhloblattodes'' Chopard, 1946 *'' Crenocticola'' Li and Huang, 2019 Burmese amber, Cenomanian *'' Mulleriblattina'' Sendi et al, 2020 Burmese amber, Cenomanian

References

Blattodea Species File: Nocticolidae
Cockroach families {{Cockroach-stub