Description

Juicy looking cockroach

Late Carboniferous (Stephanian)
Coal Shale
Commentry, France
Excellent 13mm cockroach from a famous 19th century locality.

Insect, Cockroach.

Cockroaches belong to the Order Blattodea (actually related to termites). While they are often said to date back to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian), this is actually in reference to “roachoids,” which were roach-like insects. The Paleozoic roachoids died out and were replaced in the early Mesozoic by other roachoid groups. Modern roaches appeared in the Early Cretaceous and apparently replaced the older groups by the beginning of the Cenozoic.

Even if they don’t go back to the Coal Age, they’ve been crawling under doors for a long time.