The wingless insect order Notoptera, a group first proposed in 1915, had been largely unrecognized since its original conception, until resurrected in 2004. As now defined, the order comprises five families, three of them known only from fossils, two known from both fossil and living representatives, and fewer than 60 known species in total.

History of research

The name was originally coined in 1915 for a group of fossil

orthopteroid Orthopteroids are insects which historically would have been included in the order Orthoptera and now may be placed in the Polyneoptera. When Carl Linnaeus started applying binomial names to animals in the 10th edition of his '' Systema Naturae'' ...

s, and largely forgotten until it was resurrected and redefined ("Notoptera Crampton ''sensu novum''") by Engel and Grimaldi in 2004 (after the discovery of living

Mantophasmatidae Mantophasmatidae is a family (biology), family of carnivorous wingless insects within the order Notoptera, which was discovered in Africa in 2001.K.-D. Klass, O. Zompro, N.P. Kristensen, J. Adis. Mantophasmatodea: a new insect order with extant ...

), who recommended to give a single order that includes both the living and fossil representatives of the lineage. Terry and Whiting in 2005 independently proposed a new name, "Xenonomia", for the same lineage of

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s (including the

Grylloblattodea Grylloblattidae, commonly known as the icebugs, or ice crawlers, is a family of extremophile (psychrophile) and wingless insects that live in the cold on top of mountains and the edges of glaciers. They belong, along with Mantophasmatidae (rock c ...

and Mantophasmatodea). In 2006, Cameron, Barker, and Whiting studied the mitochondrial genomics of the Mantophasmatodea, and Arillo and Engel described a new (fourth) species of rock crawler. In 2008, Damgaard and colleagues examined the mitochondrial genome of 8 described and 4 undescribed austrophasmatine species, and some mantophasmatines; the major clades were confirmed. In 2012, Predel and colleagues studied the peptidomics of 71 populations of Mantophasmatodea, confirming that austrophasmatines are a monophyletic lineage, and noting that the development of the capa-neurons of the ventral nervous system implies a close relationship with the Grylloblattodea.

Gallery

File:GrylloblattaCampodeiformis.jpg, ''

Grylloblatta campodeiformis ''Grylloblatta campodeiformis'', also known as the northern rock crawler, is an omnivorous species of insect in family Grylloblattidae. Like other species in the genus '' Grylloblatta'', it is endemic to North America. Taxonomy This species was ...

'' File:Gladiator.jpg, A

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

of a mantophasmatid File:Grylloblattidae (white background).jpg, Grylloblattid

References

External links

* * Insect orders Extant Triassic first appearances Polyneoptera {{Notoptera-stub

History of research

Gallery

See also

Further reading

References

External links