What Insects Lived in the Age of Dinosaurs?

Beetles

• Many different types of beetles lived during the times of the dinosaurs. Some of them were not much different than the insects living today, as the vast majority of insect evolution was complete before dinosaurs even emerged. For example; the Archosteata order of beetles has several species living today that are extremely similar to fossilized beetles found in rocks from the Jurassic era. Fossils show researchers that many types of land and aquatic beetles lived during the age of dinosaurs.

Cockroaches

• Many people have heard the notion that cockroaches are one of the only species to survive a nuclear war. This notion came about because of the remarkable resilience the cockroach has shown for millennia. Fossils of more than a hundred different species of cockroach have been found from the Triassic period. In addition; fossils of many species related to cockroaches from the Othopteran family, such as mantises, have been found from the age of the dinosaurs.

Mosquitoes

• As with most types of insects, hundreds of species of mosquitoes are alive in the world today. The fossil record is much more sparse, however researchers clearly have proof of mosquitoes during the time of the dinosaurs. It is unclear whether evolutionary divergence caused the greater variety in mosquitoes in the present day, or if samples of a greater variety of species were simply never preserved or have yet to be found. As an example; only 13 species of mosquito are confirmed through a fossil record to have lived during the Cretaceous period.

Giant Insects

• One common aspect among all types of insects during this age is that many species grew to sizes much larger than their descendants today. In the age prior to the dinosaurs, insects were even larger, but during the era of the dinosaurs they were still often larger than they are today. Research at Midwestern University by Dr. Alexander Kaiser suggests a reason insects were much larger. His theory is that, because the oxygen content in the air was much richer during those days, the breathing apparatus in the insects could support much larger bodies.