Evolutionary-model-organism
Guides
Cryptocercus
wood roach, brown-hooded cockroach
Cryptocercus is a genus of wingless, wood-feeding cockroaches representing the sole member of family Cryptocercidae. These subsocial insects exhibit extended parental care and family-based social structure. The genus holds exceptional phylogenetic significance as the closest living relative to termites, sharing lignocellulose-digesting gut symbionts and providing key evidence for the evolutionary origin of termite eusociality from cockroach ancestors. Twelve described species inhabit temperate forests of North America and eastern Asia.