Macrotermitinae constitute a subfamily of the harvester termites and allies (family Termitidae

Termitidae

Termitidae is a family of termite, containing the following subfamilies:*Apicotermitinae Grassé & Noirot, 1955*Foraminitermitinae Holmgren, 1912*Macrotermitinae Kemner, 1934*Nasutitermitinae Hare, 1937*Sphaerotermitinae Engel & Krishna, 2004...

). The termite

Termite

Termites are a group of eusocial insects that, until recently, were classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera , but are now accepted as the epifamily Termitoidae, of the cockroach order Blattodea...

s are traditionally classified as 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...

 Isoptera, but have been found to be a subgroup of the Blattaria (roaches and allies) and consequently should be treated as part to this group; what taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

 entomologists eventually will settle upon has not been decided yet.

This subfamily consists of 14 genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

 and about 350 species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

. They include Macrotermes bellicosus, whose huge queen can attain a length of 10.6 cm (4.2 in) and breadth of 5.5 cm (2.2 in), making them the largest existing termites. The other adults, on the other hand, are about a third of the size.

Genera

• Acanthotermes
• Allodontermes
• Ancistrotermes
• Euscaiotermes
• Hypotermes
• Macrotermes
• Megaprotermes
• Microtermes
• Odontotermes
• Parahypotermes
• Protermes
• Pseudacanthotermes
• Sphaerotermes
• Synacanthotermes