Cockroaches probably cleaned up after dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs undoubtedly produced huge quantities of excrements. But who cleaned up after them? Dung beetles and flies with rapid development were rare during most of the Mesozoic. Candidates for these duties are extinct cockroaches (Blattulidae), whose temporal range is associated with herbivorous dinosaurs. An opportunity to test this hypothesis arises from coprolites to some extent extruded from an immature cockroach preserved in the amber of Lebanon, studied using synchrotron X-ray microtomography. 1.06% of their volume is filled by particles of wood with smooth edges, in which size distribution directly supports their external pre-digestion. Because fungal pre-processing can be excluded based on the presence of large particles (combined with small total amount of wood) and absence of damages on wood, the likely source of wood are herbivore feces. Smaller particles were broken down biochemically in the cockroach hind gut, which indicates that the recent lignin-decomposing termite and cockroach endosymbionts might have been transferred to the cockroach gut upon feeding on dinosaur feces.

Paleocene origin of the cockroach families Blaberidae and Corydiidae: Evidence from Amur River region of Russia.

Morphna paleo sp. n., the earliest winged representative of any living cockroach genus and the earliest representative of the family Blaberidae, is described from the Danian Arkhara-Boguchan coal mine in the Amur River region (Russian Far East). The branched Sc and A suggest Ectobiidae (=Blattellidae) probably is not the ancestral family because Blaberidae were derived directly from the extinct family Mesoblattindae. The associated Danian locality Belaya Gora yielded Ergaula stonebut sp. n., the earliest record of the family Corydiidae. Both species belong to genera codominant in the Messel locality, thus validating their dominance in early Cenozoic assemblages.

New species of Macrophyllodromia (Blattaria, Blattellidae) from Ecuador and a key to males of the genus.

Representatives of the cockroach genus Macrophyllodromia are widely distributed in Central and South Americas. The genus involves 10 species, including one new species described here, that are divided into 3 species groups--splendida, amabile and maximiliani. Macrophyllodromia onorei sp. n. is described as the fourth species of this genus from Ecuador. A key is provided for males of all known species of Macrophyllodromia and a species distribution map is presented.