The oldestknown fossil of a cockroach is between 125 and 140 million years old. This means that the hardy insects lived on earth at the same time as the dinosaurs. But unlike the giant reptiles, the cockroaches are still alive and well.
When a ten-kilometer-long asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago, a total of 75 percent of all living things were wiped out. The animals that were not killed by the impact themselves died when large amounts of dust swirled up in the atmosphere and blocked the sunlight.
A few decades without growth among the plants was enough to trigger mass death, but not among the cockroaches.
Flat cockroaches went free
According to insect researcher Brian Lovett from West Virginia University, there are two main reasons why insects survived the impact.
First of all, the cockroaches could squeeze their flat bodies into cracks in the ground or in the rocks where they were protected from heat and pressure waves from the impact.
In addition, cockroaches are anything but picky. Because while the carnivorous animals became extinct due to the extinction of the herbivorous animals, the cockroach is omnivorous and devours fallen fruits, carcasses and smaller species.
Today we can see the cockroach eating and digesting even non-biological things such as cartons and clothes, which means that if its normal food source disappears, it will only find a new way to be measured.
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