Systematic account and bibliography of the Notoptera (Insecta)

Bergdahl, James

This report is a sequel to Bergdahl (2013a) and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the first description of a notopteran, the grylloblattid (Insecta, Notoptera, Grylloblattidae) Grylloblatta compodeiformis E. M. Walker, 1914, from the alpine zone near Banff (Alberta), Canada. This bibliography provides the most comprehensive list of references relating directly to Notoptera since Yamasaki (1982b). It includes references to published papers on grylloblattids (rock and ice crawlers) and the closely related species in the family Mantophasmatidae (gladiators and heelwalkers), an equally enigmatic group of flightless insects primarily from the winter rainfall regions of southern Africa that were first described in 2002 (see Predel et al. [2012] for a review). These two families form a well-documented monophyletic clade, Xenonomia, with Notoptera. There is also such a bewildering variety of winged "grylloblattodean" fossil taxa (many described only from wing venation patterns) that authors have erected many other families in Notoptera, but their evolutionary relationships are unclear, as are Notoptera's relationship with other Polymeoptera (Blattodea, Dermaptera, Embiodea, Isoptera, Mantodea, Orthoptera, Phasmatodea, Plecoptera, and Zoraptera). Grylloblattids get their name from their morphological similarity to crickets (gryllids) and cockroaches (blattids), whereas mantophasmatids resemble both mantises (mantids) and stick insects (phasmatids). A systematic account of the extant genera of Notoptera is provided below. Extant grylloblatids and mantophasmatids are unique among other closely related taxa in being apterous (flightless), and in having no ocelli (simple eyes; Grimaldi & Engel 2005). Grylloblattids are best described as omnivores, whereas mantophasmatids are predators.

Systematic account and bibliography of the Notoptera (Insecta)

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