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Grylloblattidae is a family of extremophile and wingless insects that live in the cold on top of mountains. It belongs, as Mantophasmatidae, to the order of Notoptera^2].

Overview

They are commonly called grylloblattids, but are also sometimes called ice crawlers or icebugs. Their appearance evidently puzzled the scientists who discovered them, E.M. Walker and T.B. Kurata; the first species named was Grylloblatta campodeiformis, which means "cricket-cockroach shaped like a Campodea" (a kind of two-pronged bristletail). Most are nocturnal and appear to feed on detritus. They have long antennae (23?45 segments) and long cerci (5?8 segments), but no wings. Their closest living relatives are the recently-discovered Mantophasmatodea.^[3]

Th e family is placed in its own suborder, Grylloblattodea, and in its own former^[2] order, Grylloblattaria. It contains 5 genera and 34 species.^[4][5]

Rock Crawlers in Baltic Amber (Notoptera: Mantophasmatodea). American Museum Novitates 3539:1-10

^ Stephen L. Cameron, Stephen C. Barker & Michael F. Whiting (2006). "Mitochondrial genomics and the new insect order Mantophasmatodea". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 38 (1): 274?279. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2005.09.020. PMID 16321547. 

^ Terry L. Erwin (1997). "Biodiversity at its utmost: tropical forest beetles". In Marjorie L. Reaka-Kudla, Don E. Wilson & Edward O. Wilson. Biodiversity II. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press. pp. 27?40. ISBN 9780309055840. 

^ Zhang, Z.-Q. (2011). "Phylum Arthropoda von Siebold, 1848 In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness". Zootaxa 3148: 99-103. http://mapress.com/zootaxa/2011/f/zt03148p103.pdf.