Cockroaches Faster Than Cheetahs?

American cockroach

Are cockroaches the fastest runners on earth? According to Bernd Heinrich in Why We Run, American cockroaches walk and run slowly by alternately raising three legs at a time and keeping the other three on the ground. When they really need to move fast, the roaches spread their wings, shift their body weight to the rear, and run on their hind legs. They become bipedal! They can sprint at about 50 body lengths per second. If measured in body lengths, that makes these cockroaches FOUR times faster than a cheetah! 

Velociraptor

Which brings us to the speed advantage of running on two legs versus four. The quadrupedal dinosaurs were slowpokes, or at least could only sprint; but the bipedal dinos, like the velociraptor, were speed demons. Some of their bipedal descendants, like the ostrich, can run at 43 mph for long distances. Some lizards, such as the crested water dragon, rear up on their back legs to rev up their running speed. And, thus, we two-legged humans can run faster than our four-legged ape ancestors.