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Insect Identification Key Based on your answers to the questions, you have identified your insect as being in the order Blattaria! Members of this order include:
cockroaches. Etymology:
Blattaria comes from the Latin blatta, which simply means cockroach. General characteristics: Number of species worldwide:
about 4,000 Basic ecology: Click here to see examples of more roaches!
Classification :
For a list of all of the orders in this key, click here: List of Orders.
Classification note:
The order Blattaria is sometimes listed as the order Blattodea. At one time, Blattaria was considered a suborder within the order Dictyoperta. Most authorities today, however, have elevated Blattaria to the level of order, and use the classification of Dictyoptera as a superorder, which contains three orders: Blattaria, Isoptera (the termites) and Mantodea (the mantids). Oops! If this doesn't appear to be the order for your insect, go back through the key and look more carefully at your insect while answering the questions again. Your perseverance will reward you! I would like to return to the start of this key. Unless noted otherwise, photographs on this website are the property of the photographers and may not be reused without written permission from the photographers. To obtain permission, request it here. Photos at the top of this website are by: Leslie Mertz, Ph.D., LMERTZ@nasw.org. Reproduction of material from any KnowYourInsects.org webpages without written permission is strictly prohibited.
Order Blattaria: the cockroaches
• quick-moving
• dorsoventrally flattened body
• large shield-like pronotum that extends forward to at least partially cover the head
• two pairs of wings (in some species, the wings are small)
• leathery, membranous wings
• chewing mouthparts
• two cerci
• hemimetabolous metamorphosis (egg — nymph — adult)
Cockroaches are generally insects of the darkness. They are negatively phototactic, which means that they are repelled by light, so they spend most of their time either under leaf litter, beneath logs or in other dark places during the day. They become active at night. If you have cockroaches in your house, you are most likely to see them scurrying for cover when you flip on a light at night. Cockroaches are quick, and because of their dorsoventrally flattened bodies, they can fit into seemingly impossibly narrow crevices and cracks. As anyone who has stepped on one can attest, their flattened bodies also make them somewhat resistant to squashing.
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthropoda
Class Insecta
Superorder Dictyoptera
Order Blattaria
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