Abstract

Cockroaches are typically recognized as an order or a suborder in insects, sometimes rank-free. Many scientific names for cockroaches are in use, most of them are ambiguous because of frequent changes of the spelling and definition, and the discrepancy between phenetics and cladistics. Omission of the authorship of the name and of the definition further confuses readers, which include taxonomists. The underlying causes of the ambiguity are the paraphyly of cockroaches and various reproduction strategies (crucial in cockroach classification) of fossil cockroaches. This paper historically reviews the scientific names for cockroaches, and recommends the following names with phylogenetic definition (details and authorship are given in the text): 1) Blattodea are cockroaches with internal ovipositors (producing oothecae of the extant type) and all descendants including termites; 2) suborder Blattaria are Blattodea minus termites; 3) order Dictyoptera are cockroaches that produce genuine oothecae and all descendants including Blattodea, Mantodea and Alienoptera; 4) Holopandictyoptera are all insects that are recognized as cockroaches and their descendants; 5) Eoblattodea are the so-called ‘roachoids’, i.e., cockroaches bearing long external ovipositors, no genuine oothecae. Accordingly, the cockroaches in the broader sense fall into three taxa: Blattaria, basal Dictyoptera, and Eoblattodea.