Extant Isoptera Latin–Chinese name comparison list
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Extant Isoptera (Termites) — Latin–Chinese Name Comparison List 现存等翅下目（白蚁）拉丁学名—中文正名对照名录

Latin names · Chinese names · bilingual checklist — 13 families · 18 subfamilies · 326 genera · 3021 species · 68 subspecies

Extant Isoptera (Termites) — Taxonomic Index (2026.10.30)

Taxonomic framework

All taxa in this list belong to a single taxonomic framework, from top to bottom:

  1. Domain — Eukaryota
  2. Kingdom — Animalia
  3. Phylum — Arthropoda
  4. Class — Insecta
  5. Subclass — Pterygota
  6. Infraclass — Neoptera
  7. Superorder — Dictyoptera
  8. Order — Blattodea (cockroaches and termites)
  9. Infraorder — Isoptera (epifamily Termitoidae)

Below follow Family → Subfamily → Genus → Species; the families, subfamilies, genera and species are listed below.

Above family level sit several unranked clades, nested one within another: Euisoptera is divided into Teletisoptera and Icoisoptera, Icoisoptera into Neoisoptera, and Neoisoptera into Geoisoptera; the sections below follow that nesting, indented by level.

Pinyin (e.g. baiyi) and traditional Chinese are both supported. For anything beyond the checklist (blog posts, species pages), see full-site search.

Cross-checks against GBIF / Catalogue of Life / Blattodea Species File flag 328 rows that need a human decision (10 name conflicts → 8 pairs: 7 combination differences · 6 with our name receiving · 0 recorded · 65 uncertain · 253 coverage gaps): name discrepancies →

How to read the distribution maps: method, sampling bias, fossil filter, sources and licence

Each family, genus and species heading on this page is followed by its own map, and every species page repeats its own species map. One dot is one 1°×1° grid cell (about 111 km across); dot size and shade scale with the number of GBIF occurrence records inside that cell, and clicking a dot shows the count.

Method

  • Occurrences are pulled per genus from the GBIF occurrence search API (hasCoordinate=true, hasGeospatialIssue=false) and binned to a 1° grid (floor(lat), floor(lon), plotted at the cell centre).
  • Only records assignable to a taxon of this checklist are used. Occurrences of species that are not in the checklist (which contains extant taxa only, so all extinct and fossil species) are dropped, and records with basisOfRecord FOSSIL_SPECIMEN or MATERIAL_CITATION are dropped as well — this is what keeps amber and compression fossils out of the maps.
  • Every genus is pulled completely (all coordinate records GBIF holds for it, with a 30000-record safety stop); family and genus maps also use records identified to the genus only.

Sampling bias

  • GBIF records are concentrated in North America and Europe; tropical regions, especially Africa, Southeast Asia and South America, are thinly sampled. A blank cell usually means nobody collected there, not that no termites live there.
  • The result is a reproducible sample, not a random one: records come back in GBIF order and are cut at the per-genus cap. It is not a range boundary and no ecological niche model was fitted.

Sources & licences

  • Occurrences: GBIF.org, fetched through the GBIF occurrence search API. Access date: 2026-10-28
  • Basemap: GBIF public raster tiles (tile.gbif.org), falling back to OpenStreetMap tiles; © OpenStreetMap contributors. Leaflet 1.9.4 is self-hosted (assets/vendor/leaflet/, BSD-2-Clause).
  • Tile policy: maps are created only when they scroll into the viewport, with no prefetching, zoom capped at level 9. GeoJSON and the summary JSON are generated by this site and released under CC BY 4.0.

Browse by family (13 families)

Each of the 13 families has its own page listing every subfamily, genus and species link with counts:

This page is an index only: the taxonomic framework, the family browser and the references live here, while each family, subfamily and genus page carries its own morphology, biology and distribution text plus the species entries (scientific name, Chinese name, author and year, type locality, distribution).

Extant Isoptera

13 family · 18 subfamily · 326 genus · 3021 species · 68 subspecies in total (including subordinate clades)

It is divided into Euisoptera (below). The families placed directly in it are listed below:

Euisoptera

12 family · 18 subfamily · 325 genus · 3020 species · 68 subspecies in total (including subordinate clades)

This clade holds no families of its own; it is divided into Teletisoptera and Icoisoptera (below).

Teletisoptera

4 family · 8 genus · 37 species · 2 subspecies

Icoisoptera

8 family · 18 subfamily · 317 genus · 2983 species · 66 subspecies in total (including subordinate clades)

It is divided into Neoisoptera (below). The families placed directly in it are listed below:

Neoisoptera

7 family · 18 subfamily · 294 genus · 2503 species · 62 subspecies in total (including subordinate clades)

It is divided into Geoisoptera (below). The families placed directly in it are listed below:

Geoisoptera

2 family · 18 subfamily · 283 genus · 2373 species · 62 subspecies

Every family page carries its own English account; the complete collection of family and subfamily texts is in sections in English.

References

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