Abstract Insects have the highest species richness among animals, but the extent of their diversity and the timing of their diversification remain unclear. Insect diversification is difficult to infer due to the incompleteness of the fossil record. Phylogenetic trees of extant species reconstructed from an exhaustive sampling can be useful to address major evolutionary questions. Here, we investigated the diversification of termites, which comprise 2,995 described species, using estimates of speciation, extinction…

Abstract Termites are a lineage of social cockroaches abundant in tropical ecosystems where they are key decomposers of organic matter from wood to soil. Despite their ecological significance, only a handful of reference-quality termite genomes have been sequenced, which is insufficient to unravel the genetic mechanisms that have contributed to their ecological success. Here, we performed sequencing and hybrid assembly of 45 taxonomically and ecologically diverse termites and two cockroaches, resulting in haplotyp…

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the transmission of genetic material across species, is an important innovation source in prokaryotes. In contrast, its significance is unclear in many eukaryotes, including insects. Here, we used high-quality genomes of 45 termites and two cockroaches to investigate HGTs across blattodean genomes. We identified 289 genes and 2,494 pseudogenes classified into 168 orthologous groups originating from an estimated 281 HGT events. Wolbachia represented the primary HGT source, while term…

Obtusitermes monomorphus sp. nov. is described from the monomorphic soldier and worker castes. The two described congeners, O. panamae (Snyder, 1924) and O. formosulus Cuezzo and Cancello, 2009 both have dimorphic soldiers and workers. It is now demonstrated that the major worker hindgut of all three Obtusitermes species are unique among other termite taxa in due to the first proctodeal segment connected to the third proctodeal segment by a very long and tubular enteric valve (second proctodeal segment) with weak …

Cubitermitinae species whose workers have enteric valves of the fungifaber and finitimus patterns were previously gathered into the genus Isognathotermes. Here, we revise this genus, combining the morphological and anatomical features of all castes, as well as the species’ chorological, ecological, and phylogenetic (mitogenome) characteristics in an integrative taxonomic approach. In addition to the genetic signature, the best morphological criteria for generic recognition are found in the workers’ EVA (enteric va…