WThe Adephaga, with more than 40,000 recorded species in 10 families, are a suborder of highly specialized beetles and the second-largest suborder of the order Coleoptera. Members of this suborder are collectively known as adephagans, and include ground beetles and a variety of aquatic beetles, such as predaceous diving beetles and whirligig beetles. Most of the species belong to the family Carabidae.
WThe Annulipalpia, also known as the "fixed-retreat makers", are a suborder of Trichoptera, the caddisflies. The name of the suborder refers to the flexible terminal segment of the adult maxillary palps, which often has many tiny rings.
WSucking lice have around 500 species and represent the smaller of the two traditional suborders of lice. As opposed to the paraphyletic chewing lice, which are now divided among three suborders, the sucking lice are monophyletic.
WThe Plecoptera are an order of insects, commonly known as stoneflies. Some 3,500 species are described worldwide, with new species still being discovered. Stoneflies are found worldwide, except Antarctica. Stoneflies are believed to be one of the most primitive groups of Neoptera, with close relatives identified from the Carboniferous and Lower Permian geological periods, while true stoneflies are known from fossils only a bit younger. Their modern diversity, however, apparently is of Mesozoic origin.
WThe Apocrita are a suborder of insects in the order Hymenoptera. It includes wasps, bees, and ants, and consists of many families. It contains the most advanced hymenopterans and is distinguished from Symphyta by the narrow "waist" (petiole) formed between the first two segments of the actual abdomen; the first abdominal segment is fused to the thorax, and is called the propodeum. Therefore, it is general practice, when discussing the body of an apocritan in a technical sense, to refer to the mesosoma and metasoma rather than the "thorax" and "abdomen", respectively. The evolution of a constricted waist was an important adaption for the parasitoid lifestyle of the ancestral apocritan, allowing more maneuverability of the female's ovipositor. The ovipositor either extends freely or is retracted, and may be developed into a stinger for both defense and paralyzing prey. Larvae are legless and blind, and either feed inside a host or in a nest cell provisioned by their mothers.
WThe Archostemata are the smallest suborder of beetles, consisting 45 living species in five families. They are an ancient lineage with a number of primitive characteristics. They are similar in morphology to the first beetles, which appear in the fossil record about 250 million years ago. Antennae may be thread-shaped (filiform) or like a string of beads (moniliform). This suborder also contains the only beetles where both sexes are paedogenic, Micromalthus debilis.
WArctoperlaria is a suborder of stoneflies.
WArixeniidae is a family of earwigs in the suborder Neodermaptera. Arixeniidae was formerly considered a suborder, Arixeniina, but was reduced in rank to family and included in the new suborder Neodermaptera.
WThe Auchenorrhyncha suborder of the Hemiptera contains most of the familiar members of what was called the "Homoptera" – groups such as cicadas, leafhoppers, treehoppers, planthoppers, and spittlebugs. The aphids and scale insects are the other well-known "Homoptera", and they are in the suborder Sternorrhyncha.
WThe Brachycera are a suborder of the order Diptera. It is a major suborder consisting of around 120 families. Their most distinguishing characteristic is reduced antenna segmentation.
WThe Caelifera are a suborder of orthopteran insects. They include the grasshoppers and grasshopper-like insects, as well as other superfamilies classified with them: the ground-hoppers (Tetrigoidea) and pygmy mole crickets (Tridactyloidea). The latter should not be confused with the mole crickets (Gryllotalpidae), which belong to the other Orthopteran sub-order Ensifera.
WColeorrhyncha or Peloridiomorpha, also known as moss bugs or beetle bugs, are a suborder of Hemiptera and represent an ancient lineage of moss-feeding insects that evolved in the southern paleo-continent Gondwana. They show some similarities to the Heteroptera but have been considered distinct. It has a single extant family, the Peloridiidae. Three other families have been established on the basis of fossils and these include the more ancient Progonocimicidae and the later Karabasiidae and Hoploridiidae. The Coleorrhyncha were earlier included within the "Homoptera" but based on studies of their morphological similarities as well as molecular phylogeny are now considered as a sister group of the Heteroptera. They have wings in some species which are reduced in others but all species are flightless and live in damp moss habitats and are associated with the distribution of Nothofagus trees in Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, and South America.
WEnsifera is a suborder of insects that includes the various types of crickets and their allies including: true crickets, camel crickets, bush crickets or katydids, grigs, weta and Cooloola monsters. This and the suborder Caelifera make up the order Orthoptera. Ensifera is believed to be a more ancient group than Caelifera, with its origins in the Carboniferous period, the split having occurred at the end of the Permian period. Unlike the Caelifera, the Ensifera contain numerous members that are partially carnivorous, feeding on other insects, as well as plants.
WEpiprocta is one of the two extant suborders of the Odonata. It was proposed relatively recently, having been created to accommodate the inclusion of the Anisozygoptera. The latter has been shown to be not a natural suborder, but rather a paraphyletic collection of lineages, so it has been combined with the previous suborder Anisoptera, the well-known dragonflies, into the Epiprocta. The old suborder Anisoptera is proposed to become an infraorder within the Epiprocta, whereas the "anisozygopterans" included here form the infraorder Epiophlebioptera.
WEudiptera is a suborder of Diptera under an alternative subordinal classification based largely on fossil taxa; it has not gained wide acceptance among non-paleontological dipterists and is presented here for comparative purposes only.
WThe Euphasmatodea, also known by its junior synonym Verophasmatodea is a suborder of the Phasmatodea, which contains the vast majority of the extant species of stick and leaf insects.
WFurcatergalia is a suborder of mayflies in the order Ephemeroptera. There are about 14 families and at least 1,700 described species in Furcatergalia.
WGlossata is the suborder of the insect order Lepidoptera that contains most lepidopteran species and includes all the superfamilies of moths and butterflies that have a coilable proboscis..
WThe Hemerobiiformia are a suborder of insects in the order Neuroptera. The phylogeny of the Neuroptera was explored in 2014 using mitochondrial DNA sequences. The results indicate that the traditional Hemerobiiformia are paraphyletic, meaning that not all the members of the clade are considered to belong to it, in particular since it would include all the Myrmeleontiformia, with which the Hemerobiiformia were traditionally contrasted. The Osmyloidea, usually included in Hemerobiiformia, actually seem to represent a more ancient lineage basal to Hemerobiiformia as well as Myrmeleontiformia. The broken-up group is shown in the cladogram:
WHemimeridae is a family of earwigs in the suborder Neodermaptera. Hemimeridae was formerly considered a suborder, Hemimerina, but was reduced in rank to family and included in the new suborder Neodermaptera.
WThe Heteroptera are a group of about 40,000 species of insects in the order Hemiptera. They are sometimes called "true bugs", though that name more commonly refers to the Hemiptera as a whole. "Typical bugs" might be used as a more unequivocal alternative, since the heteropterans are most consistently and universally termed "bugs" among the Hemiptera. "Heteroptera" is Greek for "different wings": most species have forewings with both membranous and hardened portions ; members of the primitive sub-group Enicocephalomorpha have completely membranous wings.
WHomoptera is a suborder of order Hemiptera that is considered by some taxonomists to be paraphyletic, and therefore deprecated (obsolete). It was therefore split into the suborders Sternorrhyncha, Auchenorrhyncha, and Coleorrhyncha. The earlier work was based on nuclear DNA, but more recent phylogenetic analysis using mitochondrial DNA suggest that Homoptera may be a monophyletic group after all, a sister group of Heteroptera. The cause of the disparity in the analyses is suggested to be the long branch attraction effect in phylogenetic analysis, due to rapidly evolving DNA regions.
WThe Integripalpia are a suborder of Trichoptera, the caddisflies. The name refers to the unringed nature of maxillary palp's terminal segment in the adults. Integripalpian larvae construct portable cases out of debris during the first larval instar, which are enlarged through subsequent instars. These cases are often very specific in construction at both the family and genus level.
WMantophasmatidae is a family of carnivorous wingless insects within the order Notoptera, which was discovered in Africa in 2001. Originally, the group was regarded as an order in its own right, and named Mantophasmatodea, but, using recent evidence indicating a sister group relationship with Grylloblattidae, Arillo and Engel have combined the two groups into a single order, Notoptera.
WMyxophaga is the second-smallest suborder of the Coleoptera after Archostemata, consisting of roughly 65 species of small to minute beetles in four families. The members of this suborder are aquatic and semiaquatic, and feed on algae.
WThe Nematocera are a suborder of elongated flies with thin, segmented antennae and mostly aquatic larvae. Major families in the suborder include the mosquitoes, crane flies, gnats, black flies, and a group of families described as midges.
WPannota is a suborder of mayflies. One of the differences between this suborder and its sister group Schistonota concerns the degree of fusion of the wing pads in the final-stage nymph; in Schistonota, the degree of fusion along the mesothorax is more than half the fore-wing length while in Pannota the degree of fusion is less than half that length. Other differences between the two groups include the morphology of the gills and also behavioural differences. Schistonota nymphs are mostly active swimmers, burrowers and sprawlers, while Pannota nymphs are more passive, slow-moving crawlers.
WPisciforma is a suborder of mayflies in the order Ephemeroptera. There are at least 410 described species in Pisciforma.
WPolyphaga is the largest and most diverse suborder of beetles. It comprises 144 families in 16 superfamilies, and displays an enormous variety of specialization and adaptation, with over 350,000 described species, or approximately 90% of the beetle species so far discovered.
WPsocomorpha is a suborder of barklice, booklice, and parasitic lice in the order Psocoptera. There are more than 20 families and 5,300 described species in Psocomorpha.
WSchistonota is a suborder of mayflies. One of the differences between this suborder and its sister group, Pannota, concerns the degree of fusion of the wing pads in the final-stage nymph; in Schistonota, the degree of fusion along the mesothorax is more than half the fore-wing length while in Pannota the degree of fusion is less than half that length. Other differences between the two groups include the morphology of the gills and also behavioural differences. Schistonota nymphs are mostly active swimmers, burrowers or sprawlers, while Pannota nymphs are more passive, slow-moving crawlers.
WThe Sternorrhyncha suborder of the Hemiptera contains the aphids, whiteflies, and scale insects, groups which were traditionally included in the now-obsolete order "Homoptera". "Sternorrhyncha" refers to the rearward position of the mouthparts relative to the head.
WSawflies are the insects of the suborder Symphyta within the order Hymenoptera alongside ants, bees and wasps. The common name comes from the saw-like appearance of the ovipositor, which the females use to cut into the plants where they lay their eggs. The name is associated especially with the Tenthredinoidea, by far the largest superfamily in the suborder, with about 7,000 known species; in the entire suborder, there are 8,000 described species in more than 800 genera. Symphyta is paraphyletic, consisting of several basal groups within the order Hymenoptera, each one rooted inside the previous group, ending with the Apocrita which are not sawflies.
WTerebrantia is a suborder of thrips. Order Thysanoptera includes 5,500 species classified into two suborders distinguished by the ovipositor. Terebrantia have a well-developed conical ovipositor, while the Tubulifera do not. It contains 13 families, five of which are only known from fossils. Members of Terebrantia mainly feed on plants. All have two larval instars followed by two pupal instars.
WTimematodea is a small suborder of stick insects, believed to be the earliest branch of the group. It contains only one living genus, Timema, known from the western United States, as well as two fossil genera, Granosicorpes and Tumefactipes from the early Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) aged Burmese amber of Myanmar, all three of which are assigned to the family Timematidae. Another genus, Electrotimema from the Eocene aged Baltic amber has also been assigned to the suborder, but this placement is tenative as key diagnostic characters of the family were not noted in its description. Key diagnostic characters of the family include trimerous tarsi.
WTroctomorpha is a suborder of barklice, booklice, and parasitic lice in the order Psocoptera. There are more than 30 families and 5,800 described species in Troctomorpha.
WTrogiomorpha is a suborder of barklice, booklice, and parasitic lice in the order Psocoptera. There are about 7 families and more than 430 described species in Trogiomorpha.
WMicropterigoidea is the superfamily of "mandibulate archaic moths", all placed in the single family Micropterigidae, containing currently about twenty living genera. They are considered the most primitive extant lineage of lepidoptera. The name comes from the Greek for mikros, little and pterux, a wing. The fossil record of the group goes back to the middle-late Jurassic with the earliest known species being Auliepterix from the Karabastau Formation in Kazakhstan.
WDamselflies are insects of the suborder Zygoptera in the order Odonata. They are similar to dragonflies, which constitute the other odonatan suborder, Anisoptera, but are smaller and have slimmer bodies. Most species fold the wings along the body when at rest, unlike dragonflies which hold the wings flat and away from the body. An ancient group, damselflies have existed since at least the Lower Permian, and are found on every continent except Antarctica.