Synopsis of the Insect Orders

by: Walter Ebeling, Professor, UC Berkeley

APTERYGOTA. Primitively wingless insects without metamorphosis.

• Protura. (proturans)
• Collembola. (springtails, snowfleas)
• Diplura. (two-pronged bristletails)
• Thysanura. (silverfish, bristletails, firebrats)

PTERYGOTA. Winged insects, with some secondarily wingless.

• Exopterygota. Wing pads develop externally in nymph. Paurometabolous insects with gradual metamorphosis.

• Orthoptera. (grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, cockroaches, walkingsticks, and mantids)
• Isoptera. (termites)
• Dermaptera. (earwigs)
• Embioptera. (embiids)
• Psocoptera. (psocids, booklice, barklice)
• Thysanoptera. (thrips)
• Phthiraptera. (biting lice, sucking lice)
• Hemiptera. (bugs, leafhoppers, aphids, mealybugs, scales)

• Exopterygota. Wing pads develop externally in nymph or naiad. Hemimetabolous insects with incomplete metamorphosis.

• Ephemerida. (mayflies)
• Odonata. (dragonflies, damselflies)
• Plecoptera. (stoneflies)

• Endopterygota. Wings develop internally as imaginal buds before being everted in the pupa. Holometabolous insects with complete metamorphosis.

• Neuroptera. (lacewings, antlions, dobsonflies)
• Mecoptera. (scorpionflies)
• Trichoptera. (caddisflies)
• Lepidoptera. (moths, skippers, butterflies)
• Coleoptera, (beetles, weevils)
• Strepsiptera. (stylopids or twisted-winged insects)
• Hymenoptera. (ants, wasps, wasplike parasites, and bees)
• Diptera. (true flies, mosquitoes, gnats, midges)
• Siphonaptera. (fleas)