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 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 includes the Grylloblattodea and 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 name was resurrected and redefined so as to give a single order that includes both the living and fossil representatives of the lineage.

Overview

As now defined, then, the order comprises four families, two of them known only from fossils, and two known from both fossil and living representatives, and fewer than 30 known species in total.