Buzz
Cockroaches are high up on the list of creatures you definitely don’t want scurrying around your kitchen—just behind hostile bears. But these pests are more than just an annoying nuisance. While you may cringe at the thought of cockroaches settling into your snack cupboard, you’ll likely find yourself chatting with the exterminator about it soon enough. Here are 10 intriguing facts about cockroaches to share during those fumigation sessions.
10. Cockroach Eating Challenges
Back in 2008, the Six Flags Great America theme park in Chicago came up with a truly stomach-turning Halloween promotion. They offered free park tickets to the winner of a contest who could eat the most live cockroaches in five minutes. A doctor warned against participation due to the harmful microorganisms inside the insects. However, the park revived the challenge in 2011, responding to ‘popular demand.’
The true danger of such a contest was tragically revealed in Florida. A competitor named Edward Archbold passed away shortly after a pet shop held a cockroach-eating competition, with a python offered as the prize. He suffocated when cockroach fragments became lodged in his throat. In response to this, Six Flags chose to cancel their contest following the fatal incident.
Naturally, most people probably wouldn’t want to even consider putting a cockroach anywhere near their mouths. Unfortunately...
9. You’re Likely Eating Cockroach
Did you know that there are eight insect parts in an average chocolate bar? And it’s not just chocolate that’s full of creepy crawlies. Peanut butter, cheese, popcorn, and many other foods often contain traces of cockroach. The FDA considers up to 60 insect parts per 100 grams as acceptable for human consumption. While it may be harmless for most people, aside from the gross factor, some believe that those with a chocolate allergy may actually be allergic to cockroach, not chocolate itself.
Contamination begins during the food-growing process. The only way to prevent it would be to use a lot more pesticides, which would be worse than consuming a small amount of insect protein. In the end, there's no real way to completely avoid ingesting insects, unless you decide to stop eating altogether, which might start to seem like a sensible choice. Perhaps farmers should collaborate with the scientists who fed cockroaches mint and vanilla.
8. Morning Struggles
For many of us, it takes a few hours and a hefty dose of caffeine in the morning before we can be called 'functional.' The cockroach, however, takes 'not being a morning person' to a whole new level. What truly makes them unique is their complete inability to form new memories at the start of the day.
Researchers put this to the test by trying to teach cockroaches to like unpleasant smells. Cockroaches typically hate peppermint but love vanilla. A group of scientists trained cockroaches to associate mint with sugar water, carrying out the experiment at different times of the day. What they discovered was that by evening and into the night, the roaches could learn that vanilla had betrayed them and mint was their new favorite. But when the same experiment was done in the morning, they still preferred vanilla.
Scientists aren't sure why cockroaches don't seem to have the capacity to absorb new information early in the day. However, when taught at their preferred time, they can retain knowledge by the following morning. It seems their learning ability is just temporarily shut off during the early hours. This kind of research offers biologists a glimpse into the basic molecular processes behind memory. Now, we just hope they add chocolate chip cookies to the mix when it comes to human trials.
7. Robotics
Technology has drawn a lot of inspiration from nature—after all, evolution has been solving problems for billions of years that we’ve only started tackling in the last few decades. One of the technological fields most influenced by cockroaches is robotics. The second-fastest legged robot ever created is modeled after cockroaches. Known as the 'velociroach,' this robot combines two of your childhood nightmares into one catchy name. It uses six legs to race across the floor at nearly 10 kilometers per hour (6 mph), almost twice as fast as a real cockroach.
A larger, slower robot inspired by the cockroach is the Dash. Developed by students from Berkeley, it moves at nearly the same speed as a real cockroach. It can drop from a height of 28 meters (92 ft) and keep moving. Even better, you can purchase a kit to build your own for just US $65 and control it with your smartphone. They’ve even added wings to it, hoping that one day it will be able to help rescue survivors from disaster zones.
It's not just the cockroach’s body that has sparked interest in the world of robotics. Researchers from Tel Aviv are studying how the insect's nervous system controls its movement to develop more efficient walking in robots.
6. Cockroach Farming
In the midst of all the buzz about China’s booming economy, it’s easy to overlook some of the more unconventional industries that are rising in popularity. One such industry is cockroach farming. Between 2010 and 2013, the value of dried cockroaches skyrocketed by a factor of ten. These insects are ground into powder for use in traditional medicines, and cosmetic companies also purchase them as a protein source.
The same characteristics that make cockroaches so difficult to eradicate also make them remarkably easy to farm. The largest farm in China, home to 10 million roaches, is located in an old chicken coop. The roaches are housed in old egg cartons and fed vegetable scraps collected from local restaurants. The profit margins can soar as high as 650 percent.
Although it's hard to imagine that eating ground-up cockroaches could cure cancer, as some alternative practitioners claim, these insects do have some legitimate medical potential. Researchers looking for antibiotic alternatives have found that cockroach nerve cells possess the ability to kill germs. When their nervous tissue came into contact with germs, it killed 90 percent of MRSA and E. coli without harming human cells. The scientists argue that it’s logical for cockroaches to evolve these antimicrobial properties, considering the unsanitary environments they inhabit.
Of course, housing millions of insects in one delicate structure can easily go awry. Over a million cockroaches escaped a farm in China when the greenhouse containing them was vandalized. The farm’s owner had invested over $15,000 in setting up the operation, an amount he is unlikely to recover. The local community probably isn’t too supportive either.
5. New York’s Asian Invasion
New Yorkers are no strangers to cockroaches, but the city does have one advantage when it comes to battling these pests—the winter chill. Cold temperatures typically drive down the roach population, but a new threat emerged when an Asian species of cockroach, Periplaneta japonica, was discovered on the island of Manhattan. Unlike the native roaches, which are forced to stay indoors, these Asian roaches can survive the frigid temperatures and snow.
It’s not all bad news, though. The researcher who confirmed the arrival of this species suggests that the new roaches are likely to compete with the established ones for space and food. This competition could lead both species to focus their energy on each other, leaving less time for reproduction, ultimately leading to a decrease in the overall cockroach population.
4. Remote Control Roaches
If you're fascinated by the idea of a robot inspired by a cockroach, how about a real-life cockroach turned into a cyborg? By attaching a receiver to the cockroach's back and inserting electrodes into its antennae, scientists have made it possible to remotely control its movements. The precision is so impressive that researchers can even guide the insect along a pre-determined curved path. The technology behind this is accessible to the public, and the team responsible for this innovation has even developed a smartphone app that lets you control these creatures.
Backyard Brains, the company behind this innovation, has faced criticism for alleged animal cruelty. To attach the 'backpacks,' the cockroaches are first chilled in ice water to slow them down, then the tops of their heads are sanded, their antennae cut, and electrodes are inserted. Critics argue that this practice reduces living creatures to mere tools and that using it with children may promote psychopathic behavior. However, scientists claim that research shows the animals don't experience pain. They also see the potential for significant humanitarian benefits, such as deploying these cyborg insects in rescue missions after disasters like earthquakes, where the insects’ mobility and ability to interact with complex environments could save lives.
3. Cockroaches and Their Diet
One of the most intriguing insights into the distant past comes from insects preserved in amber. While DNA doesn’t last long enough to resurrect dinosaurs as seen in Jurassic Park, other organic materials do survive the ages. Slovakian researcher Peter Vršanský and his team were using x-rays to create a 3-D model of an ancient cockroach when they stumbled upon larger-than-expected chunks of wood. These pieces were smoother and more digested than what a cockroach could have produced. The only source of such wood that scientists are aware of is dinosaur feces, leading them to suggest that the cockroaches may have had an unusual, perhaps dinosaur-based, diet.
There's a fascinating story not only in the ancient feces of cockroaches but also in the way modern cockroaches interact with their own waste. Wood cockroaches, for example, make their homes in decaying trees and coat their nests with their own excrement. This serves as a natural antifungal agent, preventing harmful fungi from growing. This behavior might also offer insight into the evolution of termite social structures, as DNA evidence suggests that termites are descended from cockroaches. While other colony-living insects like ants and bees have genetics that favor group living, termites do not. The researcher who discovered the antifungal property of cockroach droppings theorizes that this behavior might have led to early social cooperation, with cockroaches pooling their waste to enhance their protection against fungi.
2. Moscow's Cockroach Enigma
Moscow has had an intriguing history with cockroaches in recent years. In 2008, reports showed a significant decline in cockroach infestations since the beginning of the decade. When officials attempted to find 54 cockroaches to send to space, it took them three months to collect the required number. A Russian entomologist even proposed that some cockroach species should be considered endangered and that a colony be maintained at a zoo. Theories ranged from radiation from cell towers to genetically modified food, but the most reasonable explanation was likely the improvement of the city's building standards.
Scientists were still puzzled as to where the cockroaches had disappeared to when they suddenly returned in 2011. But their return wasn’t gradual—it was described as a full-blown "plague." The surge in numbers wasn’t just a rebound due to insecticide resistance, as many had expected, but a shocking overflow. Perhaps China isn't the only country with informal cockroach farms?
1. Cockroach Competitions
Humanity has yet to encounter cockroaches big enough to ride, but when we do, you'll definitely know—there will be a lot of screaming. Until that day arrives, we’re stuck without cockroach dressage or polo. The only remaining options for turning our least favorite house pests into athletes are either racing them or getting them to fight. People have tried both.
Cockroach fighting, a tradition that began in China, made its way to the United States more than a century ago. In 1886, The New York Times reported on a group of Chinese individuals who traveled to major cities staging cockroach fights, raking in thousands of dollars in bets. Considering inflation, that’s quite an impressive sum.
Cockroach racing offers a lighter, more fun spin. Every fall, entomology students from Loyola University in Maryland raise and train Madagascar cockroaches, giving them quirky names like Green Machine. These little athletes compete in both sprint and endurance races. In Brisbane, Australia, roach racing has become a beloved charity tradition at a local pub, raising funds for various community causes. This event has been going strong for over thirty years.
+ Glowing Cockroach
Among the rarest and most captivating cockroaches in the world is Luchihormetica luckae, known only from a single specimen discovered in Ecuador in 1939. The region where it was found has been severely affected by a volcanic eruption, and if the cockroach hasn’t gone extinct, it can’t be far from it. In fact, researchers believe that trying to collect another sample could push the species to extinction.
L. luckae is one of the few land creatures that glows. Its glowing patterns resemble those of the bioluminescent click beetle, a toxic insect. Studies have revealed that the light emitted by both species has the same frequency, offering the cockroach the same defense against predators as the beetle. It represents the only known instance of mimicry using bioluminescence in nature, making it even more tragic that this creature may now be lost forever.
