Archimylacris

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Archimylacris Fossil range: Carboniferous
Conservation status
Fossil
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Blattoptera Genus: Archimylacris

Archimylacris is an extinct genus of cockroach-like Blattopterans, a group of insects ancestral to cockroaches, mantids and termites.

Archimylacris lived on the warm swampy forest floors of North America and Europe 300 million years ago, in the Late Carboniferous times. Like modern cockroaches, this insect had a large head shield with long curved antennae, or feelers, and folded wings. To a modern observer, it would likely appear as a giant cockroach with a "tail" (an ovipositor) in the females. Presumably their habits would be cockroach-like too, scurrying along the undergrowth eating anything edible, possibly falling prey to amphibians and very early reptiles.