T Rex? No, T Roach

1. It’s not your average roach motel where roaches go in, but never leave. It’s a coalmine in northeastern Ohio where
scientists unearthed the largest cockroach fossil ever. “ We get a rare glimpse here, a kind of window to the past, of life not usually preserved,” says fossil researcher Cary Easterday.
2 The roach was 3 1/2 inches long and lived 300 million years ago. That’s twice as big as the average, modern-day American roach, and 55 million years before the first dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Easterday adds that even though the prehistoric roach was big, the largest roaches are alive today. They live in South America and are six inches long and their wings stretch one foot across.
3 Scientists are excited about the cockroach fossil because insect fossils are rare. Shells or bones are more common. Something about the mine’s chemistry helped preserve the ancient roach, which was found near hundreds of other animal and plant fossils in the mine. The roach fossil was so well preserved that one can see its wing veins and bumps. One can also see that the roach’s legs and antennae are folded around its body.
4 The body shape and structure of the cockroach hasn’t changed in millions of years. Because of this, scientists hope to be able to learn more about how organisms survive. Scientists also hope to learn more about what the Earth’s climate was like during the prehistoric era in which the roach lived.
5 When the roach roamed the Earth, the land where Ohio is now was very different. Roaches were everywhere and Ohio’s climate was more like India’s swampy and flood-prone areas. There were even freshwater sharks swimming in what are now Ohio’s rivers and lakes.
4. Today, there are more than 4,000 kinds of roaches. They can run up to 3 miles per hour, can live without food for a month, but can only survive a week without water. Roaches can swim and hold their breaths for up to 40 minutes and roaches blood is white.

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