Description

Cretaceous Cockroach
Cretaceous
Jiulongshan Formation
Beipiao, Liaoxi China.

34mm cockroach on 72mm shale slab

Cockroaches belong to the Order Blattodea along with termites.  While they are often said to date back to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian), this is actually in reference to “roachoids,” 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.