The term orthopteroid insects is here used in the wide sense to include both the saltatorial Orthoptera, the true ‘jumpers’ with well-developed hind legs (grasshoppers, ground-hoppers, crickets, bush-crickets and camel-crickets), and the cursorial or running Orthoptera – several distinct groups of insects now treated as separate orders: the Blattodea (cockroaches) and Mantodea (praying mantids) (sometimes linked together as the Dictyoptera), the Phasmida (stick- and leaf-insects) and the Dermaptera (earwigs). The Mantodea are only represented in the UK by occasional adventive specimens. By 1974 there were 38 native species of orthopteroid insects recognised as breeding in the UK, the majority inhabiting southern England and Wales, with three species restricted to the Channel Islands. A further 14 species which were known to be established introductions or aliens brought the total to 52. Additional established introductions are now recognised, and since 2001, at least two Continental European species have been breeding successfully in the UK, resulting in a current total of about 60 species. However the number of native species is unchanged and whilst several of these have increased their known range, others have been less successful; in 1987 three Orthoptera species were recognised in the British Red Data Book as endangered and two as vulnerable, some of which became the subject of Species Recovery Programmes – though with only limited success. More detailed and up-to-date distribution information is always needed, and hopefully will be forthcoming following the 2008 launch by the Biological Records Centre (BRC) of their online Recording Scheme for Orthopteroids of the British Isles: http://www.orthoptera.org.uk/.