Talk:Roachoid

Note

(Note that the following is a copy of the talk page content when this article was temporarily placed under "Blattodea") Dyanega (talk) 00:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

proper name is Blattaria, evidently

I found the following quote online[1]: "We suggest the recognition of Blattodea and Mantodea as valid orders and Isoptera as a sub-order within Blattodea. The term Blattaria, which is sometimes used interchangeably with Blattodea, is used more properly to refer to both extinct and extant roach lineages; a group which is most rendered paraphyletic by to both Isoptera and Mantodea (Grimaldi, 2001). All extant exemplars of the blattarian lineage are more commonly referred to as Dictyoptera." This seems to indicate that Grimaldi is one of the authorities drawing the distinction between the paraphyletic and extinct Blattaria and the modern order Blattodea, which is synonymous with Cockroach. A such, the contents of this article should be moved to Blattaria if they are to be retained anywhere, with proper citations to indicate the usage of the name. Dyanega (talk) 23:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's my source (Grimaldi, D. & M. S. Engel, Michael (2005): Evolution of the Insects, Cambridge University Press, p 227:

"The common ancestor of the lineage that includes the modern families of roaches, termites, and mantises had a highly reduced ovipositor, as all species have today. This ancestor probably derived from one group of the Paleozoic roachids, perhaps sometime in the Jurassic (Grimaldi, 1997b). Names have been proposed to distinguish these orders: Order Blattaria for modern families of roaches; Dictyoptera for the orders Blattaria, Isoptera and Mantodea and Paleozoic roachids; and Blattodea or Blattoptera for the parafyletic assembelage of Paleozoic roachids (Henning, 1981; Grimaldi:1997b)"

The cited sources are:

• Henning, W. (1981): Insect Phylogeny. Wiley, Chichester, Britain
• Grimaldi, D (1997): A fossil mantis (Insecta: Mantoidea) in Cretaceous amber of New Jersey, with coments on early history of Dictyoptera. American Museum Novitates No 3204, pp 1-11.

The problem here could be solved by using Grimaldis name (Blattoptera), but in science the older name has priority. To me it seems the correct usage of names would be Blattaria for the paraphyletic order of cockroaches, and Blattodea for the paraphyletic order of paleozoic "roachids".Petter Bøckman (talk) 06:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Those would definitely seem to be more authoritative sources than the one I found, and it's the opposite interpretation. My apologies for the confusion, then. The problem with using Blattodea that way, however, is that it is very commonly used for the living group, as is Blattaria. As long as both those names directed readers to the Cockroach article (which was the case up until you created the new Blattodea article), it didn't matter which usage was correct, or which one people were familiar with. Now we're confronted with having to apply a narrow and specialized definition to a name ("Blattodea") that has a different and much broader common usage - and deal with a large number of wikilinks which will need to be redirected. HOWEVER: The point about older names having priority only applies when the two names are applied to groups whose definitions are the same, and I doubt that the original definitions of Blattodea and Blattoptera were the same; frankly, then, I think the solution may indeed be adopting "Blattoptera" (a name which I'm reasonably sure was not coined by Grimaldi) to refer to the more-inclusive grouping involving the fossil taxa. A quick Google search reveals that Blattoptera is in widespread use, and very commonly used in papers referring to fossil taxa. We can make sure that the explanation for the historical and present usages of the names is spelled out in the Cockroach and Blattoptera articles, and then there would be very little in the way of link management required to incorporate the new article seamlessly. Does this seem to be a practical solution? Dyanega (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think the solution you suggest will be the best one. All I really need is a place to put the palaeozoic "roachids" without adding to the problems the somewhat hapzard naming in this group has presented us. I'll move the article to Blattoptera, leaving the discussion here for further reference. Thank you for taking the time to help me!Petter Bøckman (talk) 20:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)