There is controversy whether the family Lygaeidae in the wider sense should be split into several smaller families. Henry (1997) has performed a phylogenetic analysis based on a number of morphological characters, and published a cladogram that renders the Lygaeidae (as it is traditionally defined) paraphyletic, at least if one wants to retain the taxa Berytidae and Piesmatidae at the family level. Therefore, he proposed a novel classification for the Lygaeoidea: he restricted the Lygaeidae to the former subfamily Lygaeinae and elevated a number of former Lygaeidae subfamilies to family level. This new classification was widely adopted by heteropterologists, only in Germany and a few western European countries heteropterologists were more reluctant to adopt the new system. Unfortunately, no comprehensive modern phylogeny of the Lygaeoidea has been published yet. However, a number of Lygaeoidea representatives have been included in phylogenetic studies of larger taxonomic units of the Heteroptera (Li et al. 2005; Li et al. 2006; Yuan et al. 2015; Yuan et al. 2015; Li et al. 2016; Li et al. 2016; Zhao et al. 2018). Strikingly, all these studies do not support the phylogeny proposed by Henry (1997). Especially the position of the Berytidae as the last branch of the clade that would have rendered the Lygaeidae paraphyletic in their classical sense, is not supported. Thus, a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the Lygaeoidea that also includes molecular data is urgently needed to arrive at a stable classification of this group of heteropterans. In the meantime, the cladogram published by Henry (1997) is not a suitable basis for a classification system, and therefore I do not adopt it here.