Interesting Facts About Cockroaches
“I am a survivor. I am like a cockroach, you just can’t get rid of me.” – Madonna, famous singer and actress.
Madonna’s quote is absolutely true. Cockroaches are by far one of the toughest insects on this planet. There is nothing like the cockroach and its uncanny ability to survive the harshest living conditions. Even in the movie Wall-E, A Pixar animation, a prominent cockroach had survived and outlived all of humanity at ‘end of the world’, and had also survived being squashed twice in the movie. This fictional depiction of a cockroach’s survival, even in a deteriorated world, is pretty close to the truth.
It has been said that if a nuclear war broke out, cockroaches would be one of the creatures that would survive. Its resistance to radiation is related to its cell cycle. Because their cell divides only once a week, which is how often they molt, at most, a vast majority of them would not be affected by a sudden nuclear blast. Tea Myth Busters conducted an experiment to end the myth that cockroaches would be the only living things that would survive a nuclear explosion. The myth was shown to be false, as they found that flower beetles had a much higher resistance to extremely dangerous radiation, compared to cockroaches, which did not survive the maximum level of radiation they were exposed to. So while cockroaches would outlive humans in a nuclear explosion, they would eventually die from large numbers and prolonged exposure to radiation.
Unlike humans, cockroaches can live without a head for at least a week and if their heart stops it won’t turn them off! A headless cockroach will only die of thirst, because it eats and thinks using the other organs of its body. These heartless creatures don’t actually have a ‘heart’ like we do, but one that consists of simple tubes and valves, pumping their blood back and forth. The cockroach’s respiratory system also allows them to survive humans when it comes to breathing air. They have been found to survive 45 minutes without air and after being ‘drowned’ in water for 30 minutes by the Myth Busters, They all recovered, alive and well!
As energetic as these roaches are, these insects are only active for about four hours a day, spending 18 to 20 hours resting – nearly as many hours as a koala bear sleeps each day. One can probably imagine why a female cockroach would need so much rest, since she only mates once in her life and remains pregnant for the rest of her life.
It is not so easy to kill these hardy roaches, even with potentially deadly chemicals, as they have this starchy white substance consisting of nutrients that help neutralize and lessen the effect of any chemicals that may threaten to kill them.