DERMAPTERA AND ORTHOPTERA 289 



Superfamily Grylloblattoidea 



Family Grylloblattidae. The exceedingly strange orthopteron 

 Grylloblatta, which was first made known by my old friend, Dr. E. 

 M, Walker, in 1914, from material taken near Banff, Alberta, has 

 probably provoked more discussion as to its relationship and its 

 phylogenetic position than any other living insect discovered in 

 the last half century. Its original describer fully realized the 

 unique character of the insect and modestly created the family 

 Grylloblattidae for it. Crampton in 1915 erected the order Notop- 

 tera to include it, and while some have followed this ordinal arrange- 

 ment, another school inclines toward the belief that in Grylloblatta 

 we have a connecting link between the saltatorial Orthoptera (the 

 true Orthoptera of some present day scholars) and the Oothecaria 

 (or Dictyoptera) and the Phasmatoidea (or Cheleutoptera). Zeuner 

 recently succinctly stated, "Since it has a number of features 

 which are more characteristic of the true Orthoptera, it might 

 rightly be called a living, though specialized representative of the 

 ancient Protorthoptera." 



Our knowledge of the family Grylloblattidae has grown con- 

 siderably since Grylloblatta was described. It is now known to be 

 made up of Grylloblatta, which is entirely Nearctic, Grylloblattina , of 

 the southern Maritime Provinces of Siberia, and Galloisiana, of 

 Japan. The genus Grylloblatta contains six species, all from montane 

 localities in southwestern Canada and the western United States. 

 They are known from localities in southern British Columbia, 

 montane Alberta, similar areas in Washington, Montana, Yellow- 

 stone National Park, the Cascade region of Oregon, and the Sierran 

 section of California as far south as Mammoth Crest. Almost all 

 the species seem to have very special humidity and temperature 

 requirements, occasionally are found in contact with snow or ice, 

 grow with exceeding slowness, and exhibit numerous attributes 

 that clearly indicate their overall primitive character. It is clearly 

 evident that today the Grylloblattidae is a Holarctic assemblage. 

 Its segregation into three distinctive generic units was probably 

 accomplished well in the past, as the genera are well defined and 

 regionally limited. The species of Grylloblatta also show in their 

 distribution, that the relatively numerous forms of the genus (five) 

 now known from California, Oregon, and Washington (the last also 

 reaching northward into British Columbia) apparently differenti- 



