Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Margy Alejandra Esparza Mora and Shixiong Jiang for their assistance in caring for and providing the termite and cockroach species as well as Katharina Meyer zu Riemsloh for help in curating the transcriptome sequences. We further like to thank Sebastian Schmelzle for providing the insect images. This research was partially supported by research grants to Daniel A. Friedman (NSF, 20-077 ID #2010290), Dino P. McMahon (DFG, MC 436/5-1) and Jan Buellesbach (DFG, BU3439/1-1).