Cockroaches are an ecologically and economically important insect group, but some fundamental aspects of their evolutionary history remain unresolved. In particular, there are outstanding questions about some of the deeper relationships among cockroach families. As a group transferred from Blaberoidea Saussure to Blattoidea Latreille, the evolutionary history of the family Anaplectidae Walker requires re‐evaluation. In our study, we infer the phylogeny of Blattoidea based on the mitochondrial genomes of 28 outgroup taxa and 67 ingroup taxa, including 25 newly sequenced blattoid species mainly from the families Anaplectidae and Blattidae Latreille. Our results indicate that Blattoidea is the sister group of the remaining Blattodea Brunner von Wattenwyl and that Blattoidea can be divided into three main clades: Blattidae + Tryonicidae McKittrick & Mackerras, Lamproblattidae McKittrick + Anaplectidae and Termitoidae Latreille + Cryptocercidae Handlirsch. Our analyses provide robust support for previously uncertain hypotheses. The sister group of Termitoidae + Cryptocercidae (Xylophagodea Engel) is inferred to constitute the rest of Blattoidea, for the first time. Within Blattidae, Hebardina Bey‐Bienko is placed as the sister lineage to the rest of Blattidae. The subfamily Archiblattinae is polyphyletic, Blattinae is paraphyletic and Polyzosteriinae is monophyletic (Macrocercinae Roth not included); the genus Periplaneta Burmrister is polyphyletic. Based on the results of our phylogenetic analyses, we have revised these taxa. A new subfamily, Hebardininae subfam.nov., is proposed in Blattidae. Archiblattinae and Shelfordella Adelung are synonymized with Blattinae and Periplaneta, respectively: Archiblattinae Kirby syn.nov. and Shelfordella Adelung syn.nov. Our inferred divergence times indicate that Blattoidea emerged in the Late Triassic, with six families in Blattoidea diverging in the Middle and Late Jurassic. We suggest that the divergences among lineages of Asian Blattidae and Anaplectidae were driven by the uplift of the Himalayas and deglaciation during the Quaternary, leading to the present‐day distributions of these taxa.

Morphological characteristics, including male and female genitalia, combined with DNA barcodes were used to identify 470 Anaplecta specimens sampled from China. Ten Anaplecta species are new to science, including three cryptic species: A. paraomei Zhu & Che, sp. nov., A. condensa Zhu & Che, sp. nov., and A. longihamata Zhu & Che, sp. nov., which are distinguished mainly by their female genitalia. The other seven new species are as follows: A. bicruris Zhu & Che, sp. nov., A. spinosa Zhu & Che, sp. nov., A. ungulata Zhu & Che, sp. nov., A. anomala Zhu & Che, sp. nov., A. serrata Zhu & Che, sp. nov., A. bombycina Zhu & Che, sp. nov., and A. truncatula Zhu & Che, sp. nov. This study illustrates that differences in female genitalia can be used to distinguish among species of Anaplecta. The female genitalia of 19 Chinese Anaplecta species are described and illustrated in this paper.

One new species of Bundoksia Lucañas, 2021 from China is described. We construct a haplotype network from 21 COI sequences to display the relationships amongst populations of Bundoksia longissimasp. nov., mainly from Hainan Island, Yunnan Province and Guangxi Province, China. For the first time, we provide the details of female genitalia in addition to the known external morphology and male genitalia of the genus. Six molecular markers (12S, 16S, 18S, 28S, COI and COII) from a total of 38 samples, including three samples of Bundoksia longissimasp. nov., are used to reconstruct phylogenetic trees using Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Bayesian Inference (BI) to assess the phylogenetic affinities of Bundoksia. Photographs of the morphology and a key to the three Bundoksia species are also provided.

The blattid cockroach Periplaneta arabica (Bey-Bienko, 1938) has been poorly understood since its original description. In this study, male and female (including nymph) of P. arabica are paired using DNA barcoding, and their morphological characters (including both external characteristics and genitalia) are described. A detailed comparative morphological study of this species and the closely related Periplaneta americana (Linnaeus, 1758) and Periplaneta lateralis Walker, 1868 was carried out to explore phylogenetically relevant characters.