Grylloblattidae is a family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of extremophile

Extremophile

An extremophile is an organism that thrives in physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most life on Earth. In contrast, organisms that live in more moderate environments may be termed mesophiles or neutrophiles...

 and wingless insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s that live in the cold on top of mountains. It belongs, as Mantophasmatidae, to the order of Notoptera

Notoptera

The insect order Notoptera, a group first proposed in 1915, has been largely unused since its original conception, but in the most recent classification of the lineage of insects that includes the Grylloblattodea and Mantophasmatodea, the name was resurrected and redefined so as to give a single...

.

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

Cricket (insect)

Crickets, family Gryllidae , are insects somewhat related to grasshoppers, and more closely related to katydids or bush crickets . They have somewhat flattened bodies and long antennae. There are about 900 species of crickets...

-cockroach

Cockroach

Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...

 shaped like a Campodea

Campodea

Campodea is a genus of small, white, bristle-tailed arthropods in the order Diplura. The best known species, Campodea staphylinus, has a wide distribution across much of Europe...

" (a kind of two-pronged bristletail). Most are nocturnal and appear to feed on detritus

Detritus

Detritus is a biological term used to describe dead or waste organic material.Detritus may also refer to:* Detritus , a geological term used to describe the particles of rock produced by weathering...

. They have long antennae

Antenna (biology)

Antennae in biology have historically been paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods. More recently, the term has also been applied to cilium structures present in most cell types of eukaryotes....

 (23–45 segments) and long cerci

Cercus

Cerci are paired appendages on the rear-most segments of many arthropods, including insects and arachnids but not crustaceans. Cerci often serve as sensory organs, but they may also be used as weapons or copulation aids, or they may simply be vestigial structures.Typical cerci may appear to be...

 (5–8 segments), but no wings. Their closest living relatives are the recently-discovered Mantophasmatodea

Mantophasmatodea

Mantophasmatodea is a suborder of carnivorous African insects discovered in 2002, originally considered to be a new order, but since relegated to subordinal status, and comprising the single family Mantophasmatidae...

.

The family is placed in its own suborder, Grylloblattodea, and in its own former order

Order (biology)

In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

, Grylloblattaria. It contains 5 genera and 25 species.