Family BLABERIDAE Saussure, 1864

Blaberidae

© Copyright F. Nanninga. CSIRO.

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Introduction

A number of important papers concerning the Australian Blaberidae have been published in recent years. Roth & Princis (1973) presented revisionary data on Calolampra Saussure, describing several new species but not providing many illustrations or much distributional data. Roth (1977) revised all Australian panesthiine cockroaches, providing distributional data on all available specimens and discussing the biogeography of the group. Roth (1994) revised Laxta Walker, describing new species and giving much distributional data on the genus. Walker, Rugg & Rose (1994) described new Geoscapheinae species with life history and distributional details.

The Blaberidae are the second largest family within the order. The family is poorly represented in Australia in terms of species, but five of the nine subfamilies are represented. The subfamily Diplopterinae was recorded previously from Australia because it was thought that Diploptera punctata (Saussure) occurred here. That was based on the published type locality of one of its synonyms, Blatta dytiscoides Serville, its type locality stated to be `Nouvelle Hollande'. Since this is the only record of the species from Australia and the type is lost or destroyed, it is assumed to be in error.

The subfamily Epilamprinae is represented in Australia by six genera. Calolampra is the largest with 28 described species; Laxta is the next largest with 13 species. Some epilamprines have very distinctive habits. Calolampra species are dimorphic with the elongate males short- or fully winged and the females stout and ovoid with minute wings. Their daylight hours are spent concealed below leaf litter. Adults and juveniles emerge at night to feed on the surface of the ground. Laxta species are also sexually dimorphic: males are slender and short- or fully winged, females are ovoid, wingless and very difficult to identify. Both sexes are extraordinarily flattened and spend the daylight hours, often in groups, under bark or in rock crevices from which they emerge at night to forage. At night they can be found short distances from the places they inhabit during the day. Molytria Stål is represented in Australia by two species that resemble Calolampra species both morphologically and biologically. Females have quadrate tegmina.

Tepper's (1893) subfamily Geoscapheinae was reinstated by Rugg & Rose (1984c) for four genera, Geoscapheus, Macropanesthia, Neogeoscapheus and Parapanesthia, which were transferred from the Panesthiinae. The unique features of these peculiarly Australian cockroaches are that each individual digs a deep, permanent burrow with a terminal chamber deep under the ground. This becomes its permanent home for a life of up to 7–8 years. At night it carries individual fallen leaves down to its chamber to form a compost heap of food in the humid subsoil. Geoscapheines are related to the Panesthiinae from which they differ in biological and reproductive aspects (Rugg & Rose 1984b).

The third subfamily, Oxyhaloinae, is represented by two species, Nauphoeta cinerea (Olivier) (probably introduced from Africa) and Paranauphoeta rufipes Brunner von Wattenwyl.

Two of the 24 tribes now included in the Panesthiinae occur in Australia. Most of the members of this subfamily occur in the Oriental or Palaearctic regions. The tribe Salganeini may be represented in the Northern Territory. The unique record is based on a pre-1886 specimen which may bear a label error for Australia. The Panesthiini is represented by Panesthia and Ancaudelia in Australia.

Panesthiine cockroaches live and feed in rotting wood. The tegmina and wings are usually broken off near the bases a few days following the final moult. This is thought to facilitate life in tight burrows. These cockroaches are gregarious in wood in eastern forests. Rugg & Rose (1984a, 1984b) reported on nymphal habits and development, and longevity of one species, Panesthia cribrata Saussure, which lives for up to four years.

All known panesthiine cockroaches utilise amoebae and bacteria to digest the cellulose they eat.

More recently, Beasley-Hall et al. (2021) produced a robust phylogenetic hypothesis for the family using mitochondrial genomes. They found that Geoscapheinae recovered as polyphyletic within a paraphyletic Panesthiinae, and concluded that there is no support for retaining Geoscapheinae as a discrete taxonomic grouping. Despite this, no formal taxonomic decisions were made, merely suggesting that future investigations should consider subsuming Geoscapheinae genera into Panesthiinae, and within Panesthiinae, subsuming Ancaudellia and Caeparia within Panesthia. This study also suggested that
Panesthia angustipennis and Panesthia cribrata are each likely to represent species complexes.

General References

Beasley-Hall, P.G., Rose, H.A., Walker, J., Kinjo, Y., Bourguignon, T., & Lo, N. 2021. Digging deep: a revised phylogeny of Australian burrowing cockroaches (Blaberidae: Panesthiinae, Geoscapheinae) confirms extensive nonmonophyly and provides insights into biogeography and evolution of burrowing. Systematic Entomology 1-17

Roth, L.M. 1977. A taxonomic revision of the Panesthiinae of the world. I. The Panesthiinae of Australia (Dictyoptera: Blattaria: Blaberidae). Australian Journal of Zoology Supplementary Series 48: 1-112

Roth, L.M. 1994. New Queensland cockroaches of Macrocerca Hanitsch and Periplaneta Burmeister (Blattidae). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 35: 225-233

Roth, L.M. & Princis, K. 1973. The cockroach genus Calolampra of Australia with descriptions of new species (Blaberidae). Psyche (Cambridge) Camb. 80: 101-158

Rugg, D. & Rose, H.A. 1984a. Intraspecies association in Panesthia cribata (Sauss.) (Blattodea: Blaberidae). General and Applied Entomology 16: 33-35

Rugg, D. & Rose, H.A. 1984b. Reproductive biology of some Australian cockroaches (Blattodea: Blaberidae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 23: 113-117

Rugg, D. & Rose, H.A. 1984c. The taxonomic significance of reproductive behaviour in some Australian cockroaches (Blattodea: Blaberidae). Journal of the Australian Entomological Society 23: 118

Tepper, J.G.O. 1893. The Blattariae of Australia and Polynesia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 17: 25-126 [published June]

Walker, J.A., Rugg, D. & Rose, H.A. 1994. Nine new species of Geoscapheinae (Blattodea: Blaberidae) from Australia. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 35: 263-284

History of changes