MEGA COCKROACH

A 300-million-year-old cockroach fossil has been found in a mine site in the United States. And it's huge.
The cockroach, which lived in the Carboniferous period, 55 million years before dinosaurs, was found in a coal mine in eastern Ohio by Cary Easterday, a graduate student in geological science at Ohio State University.

He reported the find at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

Measuring 9 cm, the fossil cockroach dwarfs the modern American cockroach which averages 4.5 cm in length.

Although many people in urban Australia would disagree, Australian cockroaches don't grow to much larger than 4 cm.

The cockroach fossil shows great detail, including veins in the insect's wings and fine bumps covering the wing surface. The antennae and legs are folded around the body of the cockroach. Mouth parts are discernible.

"Normally we can only hope to find fossils of shell and bones, because they have minerals in them that increase their chances of preservation," said Mr Easterday.

It is still unknown why such extraordinary details have been preserved at the site, said Mr Easterday's advisor, Associate Professor Loren Babcock.

"Something unusual about the chemistry of this ancient site preserved organisms without shell or bones with incredible detail," said Mr Easterday.

The area where the fossil was found was once a giant tropical swamp, and Mr Easterday found similarities between the ancient cockroach and modern cockroaches from the tropics, which can exceed 10cm in size.

The fossil site was originally discovered in 1979 by geologist Gregory McComas, with whose assistance Mr Easterday found the cockroach fossil in 1999.

The site has also provided rich plant fossils, including the earliest known conifer in the Appalachian Basin.

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