Blaberidae

Giant cockroaches, or blaberids, are the second-largest cockroach family by number of species. Mostly distributed in warmer climates worldwide, this family is based on the American genus Blaberus, but much of the diversity is also found in Africa and Asia.

Blaberidae

Drägüs · CC0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
giant cockroachPBDB
Sits inside
OrkrasomeriaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 149 million years on record.

The record covers at least 149.2 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 154.8 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 2 of 26 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 4 of 26 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 26 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 2 of 26 occurrencesEocene — about 14 of 26 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 26 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 26 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 26 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 26 occurrences158–153 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences153–147 Mya — about 1 occurrence147–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–137 Mya — about 1 occurrence137–132 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences126–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–116 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences116–111 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences111–105 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences105–100 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences100–95 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences95–89 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences89–84 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences63–58 Mya — about 1 occurrence58–53 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences53–47 Mya — about 5 occurrences47–42 Mya — about 5 occurrences42–37 Mya — about 1 occurrence37–32 Mya — about 2 occurrences32–26 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences26–21 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences5.3–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence149.2 Mya11.7 ka158 Mya0 Mya

26 occurrences of Blaberidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

26 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

13 formations

Green River — 39.53°N, 107.95°WGreen River — 39.59°N, 108.07°WGreen River — 39.73°N, 107.98°WPing Chau — 22.55°N, 114.43°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°ETranquille — 50.13°N, 120.51°WMenat — 46.10°N, 2.90°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EDarmakan — 49.42°N, 130.07°EFonseca — 20.16°S, 43.30°WKitadani — 36.12°N, 136.54°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EAmka — 59.45°N, 140.35°EJinju — 35.13°N, 128.10°E

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The named rock units Blaberidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Blaberidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Blaberidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,667 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Blaberidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

18 references

Each of the 26 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 6 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Blaberidae

Credit
Drägüs
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Blaberidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itOrkrasomeria through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Saussure 1864