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p0tat0esNov 7 8:39am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Giant cockroaches were not only living in your kitchen long before you ever moved in, they were alive millions of years before the dinosaurs and were big enough to have made even a Tyrannosaurus rex jump.
Scientists said on Wednesday they had found the largest-ever complete fossil of a cockroach. The 300 million-year-old fossil is so complete that the team at Ohio State University can make out the veins on its wings and the bumps on its body.
The roach lived during the Carboniferous period, when Ohio was a giant tropical swamp, Cary Easterday, a graduate student who helped study the fossil, said in a statement.
"Normally, we can only hope to find fossils of shell and bones, because they have minerals in them that increase their chances for preservation, but something unusual about the chemistry of this ancient site preserved organisms without shell or bones with incredible detail," Easterday said.
The 3.5 inch-long insect known as Arthropleura pustulatus was so well preserved that Easterday could see its legs and antennae, folded around its body, as well as mouth parts.
Easterday, who presented his team's findings on Wednesday to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Boston, said the fossil cockroach is about twice as big as the average American roach, although just a bit smaller than cockroaches that live in some tropical areas.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Giant cockroaches were not only living in your kitchen long before you ever moved in, they were alive millions of years before the dinosaurs and were big enough to have made even a Tyrannosaurus rex jump.
Scientists said on Wednesday they had found the largest-ever complete fossil of a cockroach. The 300 million-year-old fossil is so complete that the team at Ohio State University can make out the veins on its wings and the bumps on its body.
The roach lived during the Carboniferous period, when Ohio was a giant tropical swamp, Cary Easterday, a graduate student who helped study the fossil, said in a statement.
"Normally, we can only hope to find fossils of shell and bones, because they have minerals in them that increase their chances for preservation, but something unusual about the chemistry of this ancient site preserved organisms without shell or bones with incredible detail," Easterday said.
The 3.5 inch-long insect known as Arthropleura pustulatus was so well preserved that Easterday could see its legs and antennae, folded around its body, as well as mouth parts.
Easterday, who presented his team's findings on Wednesday to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Boston, said the fossil cockroach is about twice as big as the average American roach, although just a bit smaller than cockroaches that live in some tropical areas.
