Did The Insect Survive 5 Mass Extinction?

You've heard it a hundred times: cockroaches survived all five of Earth's mass extinctions. It's one of the most repeated facts in biology — and it's almost entirely wrong. True cockroaches only appear in the fossil record about 125-140 million years ago, meaning they've personally lived through exactly one mass extinction. The "300-million-year-old cockroach" fossils everyone cites aren't cockroaches at all — they're ancient cousins shared with mantises and termites. The real story is stranger and better than the myth. TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Cold Open — The Claim Everyone Repeats 1:10 Background: A Claim That's Impossible Before It Even Starts 2:30 The Myth: How Old Are Cockroaches, Really? 4:40 What That Means for "Surviving Five Extinctions" 6:00 The Traits Behind the Handoff 7:40 Why Didn't Evolution Build One Eternal Cockroach? 8:50 The Bigger Idea: The Myth Is Better Than the Myth 10:20 Closing Sources referenced include the 2017 Palaeontologia Electronica review of oldest cockroach fossils, the PLOS ONE phylogenomic dating of crown Dictyoptera, and current roachoid/Blattodea taxonomy. #Cockroach #Evolution #Paleontology #MassExtinction #NaturalSelection Subscribe to Evolution's Blueprint for more stories about how specific traits evolved — told as narrative documentary deep-dives.