Which Would You Rather Read?

The Night Before Christmas? Or Transitional Species in Insect Evolution?

I came across the latter last night, and I found it fascinating. The author of this blog has summarized the discussion of cockroach and termite evolution taken from a new book, Evolution of the Insects by David Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel. (Hey, it’s never too late for a belated Christmas gift. Contact me if you need my address for where to mail the book.)

The article was really interesting. Basically, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that termites evolved directly from cockroaches. In fact, it appears that termites are literally modified cockroaches.

I learned some pretty nifty things too. For example, there are wood eating cockroaches today (who knew!), which have the same (and closely related) gut flora (bacteria and protists) as termites. These little critters, essential for digesting wood, are passed down in the anal secretions which the young eat (pictures included at the link!). There are also termites which look very similar to roaches, sharing a number of their characteristics.

Kind of makes you rethink that whole phrase, “not a creature was stirring…”