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Journal of Paleontology

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A NEW RECORD OF MASTOTERMES FROM THE EOCENE OF GERMANY (ISOPTERA: MASTOTERMITIDAE)

¹ Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Geologisch-Paläontologische und Mineralogische Abteilung, Friedensplatz 1, D-64283 Darmstadt, Germany,
² Division of Entomology, Natural History Museum, and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 1345 Jayhawk Boulevard, Dyche Hall, University of Kansas, Lawrence 66045-7163

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

	INTRODUCTION

 
TERMITES (ORDER ISOPTERA) are highly eusocial members of the superorder Dictyoptera. Species generally live in large, highly organized colonies with morphologically specialized worker and gyne castes, and in some lineages a soldier caste also occurs. The termites play an essential ecological role in the decomposition and recycling of a nutritionally poor, highly resistant, but extremely abundant substance: lignocellulose. This digestion is aided by symbionts (either intestinal Protista in lower termites, or fungi or intestinal bacteria in higher termites). In addition, methane excretion from termites contributes 2%–5% of the partial pressure of this gas in the Earth's atmosphere (Sugimoto et al., 2000). Considering all of these factors it is easy to understand why the approximately 2,900 termite species are among the most significant insects in many ecosystems throughout the world.

Most recent phylogenetic work has supported a close relationship between termites and wood-dwelling roaches of the genus Cryptocercus Scudder, 1862 (e.g., Deitz et al., 2003; Grimaldi and Engel, 2005). As a result, termites can be described accurately as "social roaches" as they likely share a common ancestor with Cryptocercidae and render Blattaria (the true roaches) paraphyletic. The Isoptera itself is assuredly monophyletic and among termite diversity the family Mastotermitidae is most basal (e.g., Crampton, 1923; Ahmad, 1950; Kambhampati et al., 1996; Donovan et al., 2000). This family is represented today by a single species, Mastotermes darwiniensis (Froggatt, 1897), from northern Australia. Like true roaches, M. darwiniensis lays its eggs in an oötheca-like mass and has a distinct anal lobe in the hind wing. In addition, the pentamerous tarsus of M. darwiniensis is primitive (other termites having either tetramerous or trimerous tarsi), although pentamerism does occur primitively in some other termite genera (e.g., Termopsis Heer, 1849; Ulmeriella . . . [Full Text of this Article]