Stenopelmatoidea

Stenopelmatoidea
Stenopelmatus fuscus
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Orthoptera
Suborder:	Ensifera
Infraorder:	Tettigoniidea
Superfamily:	Stenopelmatoidea Burmeister, 1838
Families
See text

Stenopelmatoidea is a superfamily of insects in the order Orthoptera; in some older classifications this group was referred to as Gryllacridoidea.

Classification

The classification and constituency of Stenopelmatoidea is an ongoing source of controversy, with different authorities proposing radically different arrangements. At present, the majority of researchers appear to be mostly in consensus that Stenopelmatoidea comprises several well-separated lineages, at least three of which (Anostostomatidae, Gryllacrididae, and Stenopelmatidae) can be reasonably well-defined, and have molecular evidence that supports their recognition as monophyletic groups.^[1][2][3] At least one other authority, working exclusively with morphological characters, has instead proposed that Stenopelmatoidea contains only two lineages (Anostostomatidae and Stenopelmatidae), the latter of which not only includes Gryllacrididae as a subfamily, but also the entire superfamily Schizodactyloidea, similarly reduced to the rank of subfamily (e.g. ^[4]), a result explicitly rejected by other researchers.^[3]

In most classifications, Stenopelmatoidea consists of four families:^[5]

• Anostostomatidae – wētā, king crickets
• Cooloolidae – Cooloola monsters
• Gryllacrididae – leaf-rolling crickets
• Stenopelmatidae – Jerusalem crickets

References

1. Flook, P.K., Klee, S., Rowell, C.H.F. (1999) Combined molecular phylogenetic analysis of the Orthoptera (Arthropoda, Insecta) and implications for their higher systematics. Syst. Biol. 48: 233. DOI:10.1080/106351599260274
2. Jost, M.C, Shaw, K.L. (2006) Phylogeny of Ensifera (Hexapoda: Orthoptera) using three ribosomal loci, with implications for the evolution of acoustic communication. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 38: 510. DOI:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.10.004
3. Vandergast, A.G., Weissman, D.B., Wood, D.A., Rentz, D.C., Bazelet, C.S., and Ueshima, N. (2017) Tackling an intractable problem: Can greater taxon sampling help resolve relationships within the Stenopelmatoidea (Orthoptera: Ensifera)? Zootaxa 4291, no. 1, p. 1. DOI:10.11646/zootaxa.4291.1.1
4. Gorochov, A.V. (2020) The families Stenopelmatidae and Anostostomatidae (Orthoptera). 1. Higher classification, new and little known taxa. Entomologicheskoe Obozrenie 99: 905–961 (In Russian).
5. David C. Eades; Daniel Otte. Orthoptera Species File

External links

• Data related to Stenopelmatoidea at Wikispecies