The latest from aka blattahali (@Blattaphile). As you are ever wasteful, we shall ever be reborn. A dark & moldy crevasse
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“In an effort to understand the makeup of Earth’s prehistoric atmosphere, a group of researchers has been trying to grow insects as large as their giant ancestors. It’s all fun and games until they start overrunning the countryside.
Ancient Earth saw dragonflies with wingspans up to 28 inches, and their size is thought to be linked to higher levels of oxygen in the prehistoric atmosphere. Now John VandenBrooks of Arizona State University has tested that hypothesis by growing himself some big bugs.
VanderBrooks raised groups of dragonflies, cockroaches, grasshoppers, meal worms, beetles, and other insects in atmospheres with different levels of oxygen. As predicted, the dragonflies and many of the other insects raised in higher oxygen matured more quickly and became larger adults; when these same species of insects were raised in atmospheres with oxygen levels lower than modern Earth’s they grew to be smaller than those reared in modern atmosphere.
There was, however, a significant exception. Ancient cockroaches were no larger than modern ones, and in VanderBrooks’ experiment, the cockroaches grew no larger in higher levels of oxygen. In fact, the cockroaches raised in hyperoxia stayed in their larval stage longer, as if waiting for less oppressive levels of oxygen. So at least this particular bout of mad science won’t end with giant roaches raiding your pantry.”
:C
g. lurida pretties. <3 Most of mine come out white, yellow or pink, but they can come in a variety of colors and shades… each one is a bit different from the last.
I HATE COCKROACHES.
Why, God? Why, why why did you have to create such irksome creatures?!
!@#$%^&*
I do not see how they contribute to the ecosystem at all. They’re dirty, creepy, scary and they have feelers! :// EEEWWW.
hate hate hate hate hate!
P/S: This is me raging war with cockroaches in our house (again). Our property agent better send a pest control guy down ASAP!
Cockroaches are actually VERY helpful to the ecosystem. There are around 6,000 different species of cockroach, and only NINE are known pests to humans. The rest prefer to live in the soil, where the eat decaying matter, serve as food to many mammals and other invertebrates, and some species are pollinators. The Asian cockroach, Blattella asahinai, is a predator of boll worm larvae, which destroy crops. They also eat the eggs of the beet armyworm - a pest to cotton, cabbage and a variety of other crops. Farmers release these roaches into their crops for this purpose. Termites are, in fact, cockroaches, and they are enormously important to the health of forests. It is also said that cockroaches eat bedbugs.
Cockroaches used to be a friend to humans before we became compulsive about germs or anything “disgusting” (i.e. different) coming into our homes. They ate mold and leftover food remnants, and because we likely didn’t have such weak immune systems then, the cockroach likely did not spread disease to us. It is our compulsion to control our environment that has made us weak.
I do hope this educates someone on cockroaches and insects in general. It’s very sad to me how we have trained ourselves to be repulsed by these helpful insects. Just because they are small does not mean they are insignificant or unworthy of our respect. Cockroaches provide more for the ecosystem than humans ever have or will. WE are the true pests.
Esophagus, crop, gizzard, gastric caeca, stomach, tracheae, ileum, malpighian tubules, colon and rectum of the cockroach.
Interesting facts:
- The crop is a section at the end of the esophagus used to store food for a while. If a cockroach doesn’t chew its food properly, a second set of “teeth” (actually chitinous denticles) in its digestive tract, also called a gizzard, take care of it.
- A cockroach’s ileum, or “midgut”, has a high capability to concentrate mercury compared with other tissues.
- The gastric caeca are little sacs which contain enzymes that aid in digestion.
- Malpighian tubules clean waste out of the blood, basically like kidneys do for us. They wiggle like snakes in the “blood” that sloshes around the roach’s digestive tract.
- A cockroach has a heart shaped like a tube. Its heart can even stop without the cockroach dying. Cockroaches have multi-chambered hearts shaped like tubes that are much more resistant to failure than human hearts. A cockroach’s heart has as many as 13 chambers, unlike the four in a human heart. Because of the superior design of the heart of the cockroach, it has inspired the creation of a more efficient, yet less expensive artificial heart for human beings. One of many reasons we should respect cockroaches.
This and more at my informative cockroach-specific Twitter, Blattaphile. Created 5-28-09. If you can’t see all the past Tweets, this is a common problem with Twitter lately, but I have screencaps of the older ones :)
(I flipped and edited the colors of the above image of a cockroach vivisection. I thought it was neat how the top middle area forms what looks to me like a cockroach’s head! I don’t know… it excited me. :P )
Whew, it’s been a busy couple of days. Between packing and cleaning and now currently staying at my mom’s for the night after spending all day in the garage… you guessed it… PACKING, I’m exhausted as well as excited. I’ve been busy also contacting the Florida University of Entomology and various Florida insect-hunting groups, as well as several of my insect-obsessed friends… trying to find out exactly what I would need in order to get the permits to own all my pets in Florida. Worst case scenario, I’d have to leave them here with a friend until I was able to get the degree I may need in entomology in order to get said permits. I’m setting my hopes pretty high here, but my ultimate plan is to go to the entomology school that my friend from IG is currently teaching at, and is giving me some tips. Florida has one of the best entomology departments in the country, and even if I have to find new homes for half my pets… it would be worth it in order to finally pursue the dream I’ve had since childhood….
Part 2 is HERE.
Mommy Madagascan hissing cockroach giving birth. This just happened on the 23rd. I have nearly a hundred of these now, and about the same amount in my g. oblongonata hissers, which are larger, darker and louder than the g. portentosa. I have PRECISELY the amount of hissers I want now; at this point if they reproduce more, I will have to start finding homes for them or buy another roach-feeding reptile :P I have to save space for all the OTHER exotic roach species of roaches I have, after all… :)
Facts:
- Many cockroach species give “live” birth, hissers may produce anywhere from 20-50 young.
- After emerging from the egg sac, newly born roaches perform a few spasmodic twists and tear free from the thin, membranous pellicle that enshrouds it, a process called an embryonic molt.
- Nymphs molt by gulping down air & swelling up - causing the exoskeleton to split down the back. Not only the skin is shed during molting. The respiratory system is part of the exoskeleton; tracheoles, muscular connections and other delicate organs also have to be replenished.
- After being born, the newborn roaches may stay with the mother for several days. The nymphs of northern Thailand species, Perisphaerus semilunatus, may cling to their mother’s underside for a month or more.
“Today I touched one of you for the first time.
You were startled, you ran, you fled away
Fast as a dancer, light, strange and lovely to the touch.
I reach, I touch, I begin to know you.”
-excerpt from St. Roach by Muriel Rukeyser
