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The research was partially carried out under contract for the Research
Branch, Agriculture Canada; the report was prepared under the same
contract. The views, conclusions, and recommendations expressed herein are
those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Department'
lntroduction
The orthopteroid insects include the grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, and
their kind as well as cockroaches, mantids, termites, rock-crawlers (or grylloblattids),
earwigs, and stick-insects. Unlike such assemblages as "beetles"
(coleopiera), ,;bugs" (Hemiptera), or ,,flies" (Diptera), the orthoperoid
insects'have'no single vernacular name in any language that is applicable to
them all. A few languages do, nevertheless, possess single words that are used
to include most orthopleroid insects in that they refer to those forms which
leap, and which are commonly called by the Latin name "Saltatoria'" These
t.uping insects are the true locusts, grasshoppers, and- their immediate
relativ"es, and English is one of those few languages in which there is_a single,
succinct, expressive noun that covers them all. The word is "grigs." we may,
therefore, include under the umbrella of this almost obsolete name all insects
belonging to orders herein treated collectively.
Bu.tr ttr. term "insect" has changed its meaning several times over the
years, although all insects in the modern sense are included in the superphylum
Arthiopoda. Arthropoda is the name used to include the greater part of the
animal kingdom. It replaces the ambiguous "Insecta," used by I.innaeus
(1761) for a-il animals having a chitinous exoskeleton and segmented appendages.
within this superphylum falls the phylum Entoma, whose name was
uied by Aristotle about 330 B.C. for the arthropods exclusive of crustaceans,
and which was resurrected by Latreille (1804) in1796 (although in a wider
sense than it is now used, for he included arachnids and some other animals)'
Among the Entoma we recognize subphyla, the largest of which is the
Uniramia of Manton. This includes all arthropods that have primarily
unbranched appendages and whose respiratory mechanism is basically a
ramifying and usually anastomosing system of tubules, or tracheae. They
are ali land-based or clerived from terrestrial ancestors (unlike the arachnids
which, although now mainly terrestrial, have a marine origin)' The great
majority of the Uniramia constitute the infraphylum Dicera, or Atelocerata,
of Latreille. These include the superclass Myriapoda, e'g', centipedes and
millipedes, as well as the six-legged arthropods, or superclass Hexapoda' It
shouid. however, be remembered that there are some arthropods (mainly in
the immature stages) that are not Hexapoda, although they have six legs,
just as there are many Hexapoda (again, mainly in the immature stages) that
are not six-legged.
Orthopteioid insects belong to what we may call supercohort Neopterygota,
i.e., th.y ur. insects in which the wings (if present) are capable of being
iolded backward to lie along the dorsum of the body. The Neopterygota may
be subdivided into cohorts, the orthopteroids falling into what other early
workers called the Polynephria, or Polyneoptera' The Polynephria are
Neopterygota in which the excretory Malpighian tubules discharging into the