Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia: vol. 2 - Insects. Written by Dr. Bernhard Grzimek. 1984.
Internet Archive
1.) House cricket (Acheta domesticus)
2.) German cockroach (Blattella germanica)
3.) Oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis)
4.) American cockroach (Periplaneta americana)
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hey can i get those five species of cockroaches listed. i was gonna leave it at that but it seems you are a cockroach main so a top 5 list might be more interesting if possible
Omg thanks for asking me about roaches 🥺 and sorry for taking that long to answer your ask but I just couldn't throw a list without at least giving some information about those wonderful little creatures that are cockroaches! I absolutely love roaches, they are so smart, so interesting, so adorable (their eyes shaped like beans!!!).
5- American Cockroach (Periplaneta americana)
Of course, our iconic roach, maybe the first one that come into your mind when someone says "cockroach", is on the list.
American Cockroaches have one of the greatest capacity of adaptability in the entire animal kingdom (even if we wrongly think they can survive a nuclear explosion). For example, cockroaches loves sugar! But noticing that a lot of traps against them are made with sugar, they are changing their diet to eat less to not at all sweet food, to the point females will refuse to mate with a male who is often eating sugar. This is not specific to this species but I still wanted to tell (because that's pretty interesting).
Another amazing thing I wanted to talk about is how cockroaches manage to defend themselves against predators like the emerald wasps. They turn around and hit it with their rear paws, just like on the video ↓
https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Supplementary_Material_for_How_Not_to_Be_Turned_into_a_Zombie/7270961?file=13397696
4/ ember wood cockroach (Ectobius vittiventris)
This one is in my top 5 for emotional reasons 🥺. There are plenty of them in my garden so I can observe them and interact better with them than any other species of cockroaches. I played with one of them once.
Have you ever see a cockroach pooping? Because I do. One of this bad boi pooped on me once. I had a wood roach resting on my arm when suddenly it started walking around. When it stoped it bended its body and I was like "woah! Cockroaches can sit!?" Until I noticed a black dot....
3/ question mark cockroach (Therea Olegrandjeani)
Ok I'll be honest with you. I don't really have anything to say about them other than are very pretty...
But did you know the dots on its back only appear after the last moult? The juveniles are all dark brown before becoming adults.
https://youtu.be/Y1eiszrsWto?si=LiaGahUOEi63PQng
2/ Madagascar hissing cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa)
They are call like that because of the hissing sound they make to frighten predators since they are a wingless species.
The females of this species carry their ootheca (sort of bag with eggs in it some female cockroaches and mantis carry at the end of their abdomen) internally, making the eggs hatching inside the mother (this is called ovoviviparity). The nymphs stay close to their parents for protection and to be fed.
1/ Emerald Cockroach (Corydidarum magnifica)
Of course, the emerald cockroach would be the first on list! Look at them, they are beautiful! You can easily recognise the male from the female since he is the one who got wings. One thing I love about cockroaches is when the males and females look drastically different from each other.
Just like the hissing roach, this species too have its nymphs formed inside the mother for 4 to 6 months. Once born, they will hide under their mother to be fed and protected. Then, the nymphs will explore their environment while staying close to their parents, most of the time they will hide under the mother but it's not rare to see them hiding under males.
https://youtu.be/KzRJhpowB4A?si=N9gvkPysLbvW0Ard
(The video is in french but you can just read the pinned comment which have an English citation about what's happening)
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