Geologists at Ohio State University have discovered a fossil of a giant prehistoric cockroach that roamed North America about 300 million years ago.
The cockroach is about 3.5 inches long — twice as large as the average modern American roach but slightly smaller than some specimens found in the tropics.
The roach, which predates the dinosaurs by about 55 million years, scuttled around Ohio during the Carboniferous period when the state was hot and swampy. ...”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1112_TVbigroach.html
Nice find.
Took a bit to find some photos of the critter.
I have a tar pit beetle fossil and wanted to see if it was close?
Water Beetles - The most common fossil insects by far that are found preserved in the McKittrick and La Brea tar pits are water beetles, many of the genus Hydrophilus. Apparently water beetles do not detect the presence of water by smell, as do most animals. Instead water beetles identify water by the way it reflects light, and tar reflects light in exactly the same way. Thus, water beetles flying over a tar pit would have mistaken it for a pond, and became trapped when they tried to dive into the tar. Although the hand sample on the left is from the La Brea tar pits in the Los Angeles area, fossil water beetles are also abundant in the McKittrick tar pits of the San Joaquin Valley.
http://www.sjvgeology.org/geology/fossils/beetles-brea.jpg
