Fossil Insect Collaborative-Digitization Project

Happy Halloween! 🕷🕸 To celebrate, we’re sharing some fossil creepy crawlies found in the museum! —

If you thought these creepy crawlies were hard to get rid of today, they’ve had that reputation for their entire existence! We can trace the cockroach line back 300 million years ago to the Pangaea supercontinent. As the continents began to drift 200 million years ago, cockroach species went along for the ride and diversified as they were spread across the globe. Some even gave rise to praying mantises during the Cretaceous period!

Today, cockroaches continue to be hardy survivors, becoming increasingly resistant to insecticides. As individuals susceptible to insecticides are killed off, survivors pass down these insecticide-resistant genes to offspring creating new generations of cockroaches that are much more difficult to kill!

Head to our Stories throughout the day to see more of our fossil creepy crawlies!