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"Additionally, they’ve discovered the remains of several critters, including cockroaches, rats and at least two domestic cats."

The idea that we've recovered identifiable cockroaches that have been submerged for almost 500 years breaks a few ideas I had about reality.

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The exoskeleton is hard and it doesn't rot very fast. If there no biologist or chemistry nearby, you can imagine it's made of something similar to plastic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod_exoskeleton#Chemical...

And as a sibling comment says, there is too few oxygen down there so it rots even slower.

They don't rot if there's no oxygen

isn't there oxygen in H2O ?

There's very little free oxygen in the water below certain depths, actually!

Interesting, thanks!

The oxygen inside water molecules is chemically bound and not really available for other work.

Water does carry dissolved gases like O2 gas, but as sibling pointed out, not at these depths.

Interesting, thanks!

Even so, I'm surprised there'd be much of a cockroach left after 500 years or so. Presumably, they were in a well protected part of the wreck not exposed to flowing water. After water rushed in it must have essentially stayed there and any oxygen in it absorbed by nearby wood, etc. and not replaced.

Similarly, with the cat DNA. It would be interesting to know the exact circumstances of how they were found.

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