It took nearly 100 years for scientists to identify termites belonging to cockroach relatives

It turns out that termites are cockroach species that organize higher society, no more and no less.

The common naming committee for the American Insect Community has just issued a statement: they listed termites on the same branch as cockroaches. It sounds irrelevant, but it took scientists nearly a century to make this decision.

If you go to this Commission's data library, you will see in the Blattodea Suite list, you will see a series appear next to the series. As a scientific report in Science News stated, this reclassification was officially approved on February 15, 2018. The decision was supported by the US Insect Community experts.

At first glance, termites and cockroaches have nothing to do with each other. We see cockroaches often go alone, hiding somewhere under the kitchen or in the toilet. We again see that life forms a group, has its own organization and its own - there is one of the most unpleasant living mottos we have ever known, that is, destroying furniture and houses in general.

And yet, in the past, Europeans called termites "white ants", because their looks were very similar to ants but were white. These two species only have distant relatives, like the grandparents' uncle's grandparents, who have them far away.

But in fact, cockroaches and termites have the same ancestors together. This fact was discovered and proved by geneticists in 2007. Molecular analysis shows that, in essence, is a socially organized cockroach species. And flip back in history, we have seen that since the 1930s, LR Cleveland entomologist had doubted this, in the 1990s, expert expert Christine Nelepa also brought this issue to study.

For scientists, this is not new. But why did this common naming committee, ECC, bring cockroaches and termites to the same ministry by 2018?

"I could not speak for ECC ten years ago - I was not here to do it at the time, but I think this delay is partly due to the complicated administrative apparatus, but part of the policy. The classification also changed in 2007, "ECC president Mike Merchant told Gizmodo.

The last time this committee met was in November, scientists pointed out that the termite belongs to the Blattodea family. And the members decide that the database needs updating for new.

"Termites are a social species , " said Thomas Chouvenc, an entomologist at the University of Florida. He meant that the same term as ants or bees, had an advanced social organization. Studies of body structure, eating habits (both eating wood) or most importantly, DNA sequences show that termites and cockroaches are cousins.

However, it is not good to call termites as cockroaches. That is Mr. Chouvenc's judgment.

"Basically, the term is 'a cockroach species with a social organization that eats wood', but not all cockroaches are termites ," he said. " If your house is attacked, and you handle harmful insects to your home and consider that your house has cockroaches, then how confusing will you be? Therefore, the term will still be a problem."

Needless to know how the scientific guys named their age, we - normal weak people only know this way: when the termites fly, we can play it like a mosquito, and when the cockroach flies, it must be Squeeze your legs on your neck and run away.