Termitaphididae is a small tropicopolitan

Cosmopolitan distribution

In biogeography, a taxon is said to have a cosmopolitan distribution if its range extends across all or most of the world in appropriate habitats. For instance, the killer whale has a cosmopolitan distribution, extending over most of the world's oceans. Other examples include humans, the lichen...

 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 true bugs

Hemiptera

Hemiptera is an order of insects most often known as the true bugs , comprising around 50,000–80,000 species of cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and others...

 placed in the superfamily Aradoidea

Aradoidea

Aradoidea is a superfamily of true bugs. The Piesmatidae, usually placed in the Lygaeoidea, might also belong here....

. Typically members of Termitaphididae are small, being an average of 2 millimetre (0.078740157480315 in)-4 millimetre (0.15748031496063 in), and flattened with laminae extending out from each body segment giving a round scale like appearance. Currently the family contains two genera and twelve known species. Members of Termitaphididae are inquiline

Inquiline

In zoology, an inquiline is an animal that lives commensally in the nest, burrow, or dwelling place of an animal of another species. For example, some organisms such as insects may live in the homes of gophers and feed on debris, fungi, roots, etc...

s lodging in the nests of host species of 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...

 families 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...

 and Rhinotermitidae

Rhinotermitidae

Rhinotermitidae is a family of termites . They feed on wood and can cause extensive damage to buildings or other wooden structures. About 345 species are recognized, among these are severe pests like Coptotermes formosanus, Coptotermes gestroi and Reticulitermes flavipes....

. Though considered a separate family in Aradoidea it has been suggested by Drs David Grimaldi

David Grimaldi

David A. Grimaldi is an entomologist and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He received his graduate training at Cornell University, where he earned his doctorate in Entomology in 1986. Dr. Grimaldi is an authority in many fields of insect...

 and Michael Engel

Michael S. Engel

Michael S. Engel is an American paleontologist and entomologist. He has undertaken field work in Central Asia, Asia Minor, and the Western Hemisphere, and published more than 300 papers in scientific journals. He was trained at the University of Kansas where in 1993 he received a B.S. in Cellular...

 in 2008 that Termataphididae may in fact be highly derived members of Aradidae

Aradidae

Aradidae bear the appropriate common name, flat bugs, in reference to their extremely flattened body. With few exceptions, the often cryptic insects are of no economic importance...

. Of the twelve known species one Termitaphis circumvallata belongs to the monotypic genus Termitaphis and three of the remaining eleven species in Termitaradus

Termitaradus

Termitaradus is a small tropicopolitan genus of true bugs placed in the family Termitaphididae. As is typical for the family, living members of Termitaradus are small, being an average of to , and flattened with laminae extending out from each body segment giving a round scale like appearance. ...

are extinct, having only been found in amber. The living species are found world wide in the tropical regions of Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia.