Entomologists have been intrigued by Mastotermes electrodominicus because it shares anatomical similarities with cockroaches, leading to the theory that Mastotermes was the missing evolutionary link between termites and cockroaches. In 1992, a team of Museum scientists sampled DNA from a specimen of Mastotermes similar to the one pictured here and learned that cockroaches and Mastotermes have a common ancestor that's much older than the ancestor that gave rise to Mastotermes and its termite relatives.