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Biotech Critter of the Month: The Palmetto Bug

palmetto bug
The palmetto bug. The cockroach. The waterbug, the croton bug, la cucaracha. If you live in South Carolina, you’ve probably seen more palmetto bugs than you care to discuss. They are one of the icky-est looking little critters we’ve got here. Just look at those little spikes coming off their legs!! Most people know just that about cockroaches: they are ugly and must be eliminated. Today let’s explore a little more about them.

We can start from the beginning. Cockroaches have been around for about 320 million years, with only a bit of extra evolution mixed in there. They are the most primitive of the neopteran insects, which include winged critters that can flex their wings over their abdomen, like bees and termites. They can live anywhere, and we mean anywhere. Cockroaches have been found in the Arctic, at the equator, in the trees, underground, in the water, or even after a nuclear holocaust: they were found alive after the explosions in Chernobyl, Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and no one really understands why). There are over 50 species of cockroach found in North America, 450 in Australia, and over 4,000 all over the world! The most common species are the little German cockroach (less than half an inch long) and the American cockroach (1.5 inches long). The biggest cockroach is found in Australia, called the giant burrowing cockroach or the rhinoceros cockroach. It can grow up to 3.1 inches and weighs 1.2oz! If you were to put a rhinoceros cockroach in the palm of your hand, it would occupy a good chunk of it.

So even though cockroaches are gross and ugly and annoying, they’re pretty inoffensive — they don’t bite people or animals; they just eat food lying around (with a preference for sweets, starchy foods, meat, and oddly enough, beer). The problem comes when they pick up any disease-ridden microbes, which they can transport on their skin, causing the spread of that disease (this is why you don’t want to see a cockroach in a hospital). If you try to kill a cockroach though, make sure you get the whole thing — they can live for a up to a week without a head. This is because they breathe through holes in their body, and when you take away their head they just can’t drink water and get too dehydrated. They’re cold-blooded like reptiles, which means they can decrease their metabolism when they find themselves without food, and live that way for up to a month. Speaking of food, cockroaches are also edible. In China, (where else?) vendors deep fry them and sell them as street food. They ARE a decent, cheap source of protein, after all. They’ve become a staple of Chinese medicine as well (cooked, ground up and powdered, then put into pill form).

Cockroaches make decisions based on two factors: how many other cockroaches there are in their environment, and how much light there is. They’re very social animals, and when they find a food source they will often defecate to signal their presence to their buddies. This is when cockroaches start to smell bad, because their poop stinks just like the rest of us. The others will come running at 3 miles per hour, which is pretty fast for a little bug. Amazingly, one-day-old baby cockroaches (which are the size of a spec of dust) can run about as fast as adults. But at least they can’t jump, right? WRONG. One species of cockroach in South Africa, newly discovered as of 2009, can jump. Like a grasshopper. Dear South African cockroach, please stay where you are. OK but at least they can’t hold their breath for too long so you can drown them, right? WRONG. Cockroaches can hold their breath for up to 40 minutes. Unless you plan on submerging a cockroach in some water during an entire episode of Game of Thrones, try for a different method of murder.

Or you can call BioTech and let us take care of them for you, and all of their friends! Don’t worry, only pests will be harmed in the killing of the pests.

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