Throughout its existence on this planet, the cockroach has become overgrown with legends, like a rotten tree with mushrooms. And that he survives in such radiation that Geiger counters go off scale, and that he can survive without food and water for tens and hundreds of years, that he doesn’t even need a head to live. There are also many folk superstitions about the Prussians.
Of course, the first legend did not come out of thin air: a cockroach will die with huge doses of radiation, like any other living creature, it just can withstand fifteen times more radiation than a person. But what about its survivability without food and water is still worth figuring out, which is what this article will do.
There are many legends about cockroaches
Stages of life
All cockroaches develop in an incomplete cycle, that is, they do not have the stage of turning a larva into a pupa. Females lay eggs in an ooteca (a special capsule at the end of the abdomen) and carry it with them. The eggs develop in it, then the female either drops the “children”, like, for example, red cockroaches, or carries them with her until they are fully born, like a Prussian.
Small parasites are “born” as almost transparent, white nymphs, after which their chitin darkens and hardens. This process can last up to two months at warm and favorable temperatures. The lifespan of an adult is approximately 20-30 weeks.
There are also long-livers, for example, the black domestic cockroach, which lives up to several years. In principle, if you have such parasites in your home, then in about a couple of months they can build a colony of hundreds of fellow tribesmen. Females live much longer than males and are very fertile.
The eggs are formed and laid in a kind of capsule
Effect of temperature on insects
Temperature influences the activity of barbels. Arthropod pests are attracted to warmth, which is why they move into apartments and country houses. Insects are active if the temperature varies in the range of +2 - +28 degrees. It’s always warm in living quarters, which is why Prussians settle next to people.
To reduce the life expectancy of cockroaches, it is necessary to reduce the temperature in the apartment to -5 degrees. Within half an hour, the vital functions of the barbels slow down and stop completely. If the temperature drops to -10 - -15 degrees, then the death of the Prussians occurs much faster.
High temperature also has an impact on the life processes of arthropod pests. If you raise the temperature to 28–30 degrees, the barbel will begin to lose moisture, which is difficult for them to do without. Therefore, some housewives use boiling water to fight.
Does a cockroach need food?
The myth that cockroaches can go without food for a long time has been proven and supported by facts. Indeed, red cockroaches can fast for up to forty days, and black ones even longer - up to seventy. This is explained by the fact that cockroaches are cold-blooded, poikilothermic, and they do not need to spend energy on maintaining a constantly comfortable body temperature.
Also, the metabolism of these parasites is strikingly different from that of warm-blooded animals. In particular, it is enough for him to eat a hearty meal just once, so that then he won’t even take a crumb into his mouth for several weeks.
However, like most poikilotherms, heat enters their body from the outside, and for normal, stable life they need to constantly be in a well-heated room. At temperatures below zero, their numbers begin to decline sharply. How they reproduce and the main stages of life are described in this article.
A Prussian can live without food for some time.
How long does a cockroach live without a head?
The answer to the question of how long a headless cockroach lives is close to the figure from the question about water. And yes, it’s absolutely true that they don’t die right away! Having lost its head, the cockroach will not die from blood loss, because the vessels will be sealed with clots and the system inside the body will continue to work. Also, he will not suffocate, because cockroaches breathe with their bodies, not their heads. They will not lose their nervous system either: nerve nodes are scattered throughout their body, which are sufficient for basic reflexes. So the body will live without a head as long as water resources allow, which will be impossible to renew without a head.
It seems that this information about cockroaches gives reason to argue with the statement that man is the crown of creation, and to think: why did Mother Nature not bother to reward us with the same impressive abilities in the field of survival?
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Does a cockroach need water?
Water is an integral part of every life on earth, and the cockroach is no exception. If he can live happily without food for weeks, he won’t last even one without water. Water is involved in all systems of the body, which means it is constantly needed for normal life.
In the life of a cockroach, water plays one of the most key roles. In addition to the fact that thanks to water, the processes of the circulatory, salivary and digestive systems are carried out in his body, it also serves as a thermostat.
During times of excess humidity, the cockroach can secrete water through the Malpighian vessels, and in the event of prolonged drought or low humidity, the chitinous waterproof body retains moisture in the body of the insect.
Without water the parasite will not last long
Habitats and habits of cockroaches
Most cockroaches live in wildlife, and a limited number of individuals live in apartments and houses. There is a variety of these insects that live in caves. They differ in color and lack of eyes. The majority of their species live in the tropics, as they love moisture and warmth. The Lapland cockroach, feeding on wood debris, lichen and moss, has adapted to life in the north. In the Caspian steppes and deserts of Central Asia live cockroaches called the Saussure tortoise. The presence of excess food and water in apartments and houses attracts domestic cockroaches: red (Prussian) and black. Having become acquainted with the whiskered insects in our homes, we wonder where cockroaches live. Due to their physiological structure, they can be comfortably located under baseboards and peeling wallpaper, inside cabinets, tables and chests of drawers.
Head: is it needed or not?
No matter how strange and wild it may sound, but yes, a cockroach can live without a head. Just like the head itself without it. Of course, it is difficult to believe in this simply because everyone knows what happens to a person if he is beheaded. But with cockroaches the situation is much different.
American scientists confirmed this. They carefully decapitated the cockroach, sealed the joint between the body and head with wax, and then placed the body and head in a special solution. And what a surprise the scientists were when, in addition to the body, the head also lived! It is quite simple to explain this in human language.
A cockroach's body systems are different from those of humans. For example, their circulatory system is open without capillaries, so if you tear the head away from the body, the vessels will simply become clogged with coagulated blood and continue to function.
In order to breathe, a person still needs a head, because it contains a nose and a mouth. But for a cockroach this is not necessary. His body is dotted with a huge number of tracheas, through which he breathes. The head does not take part in this process.
A cockroach can even live without a head, but not for long
Where do the Prussians live?
Likewise, the question is twofold - where do they live in the world in general, and in what places should you look for them in an apartment or in a large house.
In the wild, they live throughout almost the entire tropical and subtropical zone of the world, but in most tropical countries they are replaced by local, indigenous species and do not become the dominant species and do not affect ecosystems. Actually, this is why they are considered to be natives of South Asia - there are most of them in the wild here, and the climate here is most suitable for them.
It is believed that their optimal habitat in the wild is tropical and mountain forests. But in fact, today the best place for them to live is the kitchen in a residential apartment. There are many more locusts in kitchens around the world than in the leaf litter of tropical forests. That is, red cockroaches are truly domestic insects, no matter how much people would like them to be.
Geographically, red cockroaches are distributed almost throughout the world. They are not found only in Antarctica. They were found in residential buildings and businesses even in Alert - this is the northernmost populated area in the world in the north of Canada, in Nunavut, there are only military personnel and scientists permanently there, who take turns and there is no permanent population living there. In addition to cockroaches, they live there at the military and meteorological stations. From there, by the way, it is 837 km to the North Pole; there is no summer there and 10 months of the year there is winter.
Likewise, red cockroaches are found in the southernmost villages of Patagonia, from where further south is only Antarctica. That is, in fact, they are cosmopolitan and live all over the world.
What about the brain?
The digestive system still plays an important role, since the cockroach still absorbs food through the mouth. But even without a head, he can live for ten days if he has had a hearty lunch beforehand. It is much more likely to be killed by mold or other insects than by starvation.
Many may ask: “What about the brain?”, and they will still be mistaken. A cockroach has more than one brain in the usual sense. In every part of his body there are nerve nodes that are responsible for body movements and other sensations. The loss of a head is simply the loss of one of the departments, nothing more. But, despite such skills, the head is still not as durable as the body. Therefore, she will “live” much less.
As you can see, most of the legends were still confirmed, therefore, in order to prevent the appearance of these parasites in your home, you need to carefully monitor the water in the house first of all. Cockroaches will live quite a long time without food and a head, but they cannot survive without water, so they are attracted to damp places.
Insect control products
You can fight these red and black pests with cold, heat and many other means:
- Boric acid
- Disinfectants
- Traditional methods.
Disinfectants include preparations in the form of gels, pencils and aerosols. When used correctly, they can destroy entire colonies of pests. Their disadvantage is that they are harmful to human health. Therefore, before using these products, you need to hide all food and utensils.
Folk methods of control include the use of essential oils of various plants. Cockroaches absolutely cannot stand the smell of cedar and eucalyptus oils, as well as red elderberry oil. The smells of fresh anise and mint repel them.
Cockroaches can be found under the refrigerator and under the sink, under the baseboard and behind heating pipes. They most often settle near water sources. These insects cannot live without water for more than a week.
Cockroaches can carry bacteria that are dangerous to humans and contaminate food, spoil things and cause allergic reactions. Therefore, to remove them, you need to ventilate the room more often, take out the trash, and hide food in bags. You can dilute geranium. Its smell repels cockroaches.
Various aerosols, gels, solutions and powders are used to kill insects. They are applied strictly following the instructions, after which the room is wet cleaned. In pest control, you can use Get cockroach repellent, Raptor, Karbofos, Dichlorvos, Clean House, Combat.
Nowadays, many people keep exotic pets at home: iguanas, snakes, crocodiles or tarantulas. Representatives of some species of cockroaches are also very popular among lovers of something unusual.
The little car cockroach is a very unusual specimen. In appearance, it really resembles a car with its headlights on. It has short, light-colored elytra; a light stripe adorns the insect along its perimeter. Males have bright spots on the pronotum.
The chess cockroach lives up to its name and has a bright black and white coloring. It is considered one of the cutest of the cockroach genus. As befits a normal cockroach, it is nocturnal and hides during the day.
The Madagascar hissing cockroach is a large insect, 10 cm long. Its behavior is surprising: it hisses! In nature, sometimes it scares away enemies. But most often this happens because he exhales like that.
The rhinoceros cockroach is a real heavyweight and also long-lived. Individuals reach a weight of up to 40 grams! This is practically a whole sparrow. Rhino cockroaches live 10 years or more. In nature, they can dig a tunnel in the ground a meter long.
These, of course, are not all representatives of the cockroach order. Biologists find new species every year. Old individuals adapt to poisons and to new environmental conditions and again penetrate houses and apartments. One part is like exotics, the other part is like pests.
Why are red cockroaches dangerous?
Red cockroaches are dangerous because they leave a large amount of their chitinous coverings in the room. These coverings contain a large number of allergens and can provoke chronic runny nose in people living in the same room with cockroaches. Moreover, in most cases, people do not even understand the reasons for this runny nose, they endlessly search for remedies for it, but the reasons, in fact, run around the table at night, hide behind the refrigerator during the day, and then shed or die and leave behind a new portion of allergens.
Moreover, red cockroaches are more dangerous than black ones, since they are more numerous and each individual leaves 7-8 such chitinous shells during its life. That is, red cockroaches leave more allergens in the room than black ones. And therefore it is they who need to be destroyed first.
It is also believed that red cockroaches actively bring dirt and infections into apartments from garbage disposals and other dirt accumulations in the house. But it is impossible to measure this danger and most likely it is exaggerated to one degree or another. Cockroaches do not run directly from the garbage chute into your bread bin, and those individuals that run on tables and bedside tables sit almost right there during the day, at tables and bedside tables.
Red cockroaches, in fact, are not as long-range as they seem. At first glance, it seems that they run very fast and can actually get from the front door to your table in a matter of minutes. But that's not true. You can check for yourself that if you force a cockroach to run a meter in one direction, and then a meter in the other, it runs out of steam and runs much slower.
Plus, in order to get from the garbage chute in the front door to your kitchen and transfer some kind of infection, it needs to overcome a large number of obstacles. That is, cockroaches that actually visit very dirty places and your kitchen in a short period of time are either not present at all, or they are isolated individuals. For the rest, all this dirt falls off their paws or they clean it off themselves before climbing on your food.
A cluster of cockroaches in the kitchen behind the refrigerator - this is where they transfer dirt and dust to food
Consequently, it is currently unjustified to consider cockroaches as epidemiologically significant carriers of dangerous diseases.
How do cockroaches reproduce?
Having reached sexual maturity, females begin decisive actions. An odorous secretion is secreted from special glands located in the back of the body. This serves as a signal to the male that he is ready to mate. Fertilization occurs sexually. For this purpose, males are equipped with special genital plates. Some types of cockroaches can court the lady of their heart before copulation, but this is rather an exception to the rule.
After fertilization, the individuals scatter in different corners: the male goes in search of food and then strives to continue the family, and the females lay the resulting eggs in a chitinous capsule - the ooteca and bear future offspring. Depending on the type, the clutch can contain from 15 to 60 eggs. Domestic cockroaches (red and black) reproduce from 20 oothecae in a lifetime. Their American counterparts are much more prolific - up to 90 ovipositions.
The ootheca resides in the body of the expectant mother from a day to several weeks. Then she leaves the clutch in a dark and safe place, after which, over time, larvae emerge from it, similar in body structure to their parents. In some cases, cockroaches can reproduce asexually. The so-called parthenogenesis, which is inherent in some species. It is characterized by the development of female germ cells in an adult body without fertilization itself.
What means can you use to poison red cockroaches?
Red cockroaches can be poisoned with most insecticidal agents, which are sold in the form of an aerosol or a concentrate for preparing a spray solution.
We tested 43 insecticidal preparations for household use on red cockroaches. 38 of them, that is, the vast majority, kill cockroaches. What’s interesting is that all means in cans, that is, ready-made aerosols, and all concentrated poisons for preparing such an aerosol yourself turned out to be effective.
Several checkers, several gels, a trap with poison of the same brand and one powder did not work against the Prussians. Some of them did not work due to the resistance of cockroaches from one population to permethrin, another part - due to poor contact of the product with insects, but in general there were few such products that did not work.
Simply put, it is easier to buy a product that is effective against Prussians than to buy an ineffective one. Most people poison red cockroaches with quite effective drugs, but cannot permanently destroy them either because they do not spray all the cockroaches’ hiding places, or because they do not eliminate all the ways cockroaches enter the room, or for these two reasons at the same time .
