Hissing Cockroach
Hissing Cockroach
1. They are slow moving, wingless, docile, have little or no odor, and do not bite.
2. Known as "living fossils," these insects are very similar to the prehistoric cockroaches that lived on Earth long before the dinosaurs.
3. The Madagascar hissing cockroach is wingless and can reach a length of 2-3 inches.
4. Madagascar hissing cockroaches are nocturnal and semi-communal. They are not aggressive to other species and are too slow to escape most predators.
5. Dominant males show off by standing on their toes (called stilting). Male combat involves ramming each other with their horns, using their abdomens to flick, push or thrash, hissing the whole while. The male that is larger and hisses more usually wins.
6. Female hissing roaches lay their eggs in a purse-like capsule known as an ootheca. This egg case is retained within the body until the eggs hatch, and the young roaches first see the world as tiny nymphs. You may occasionally see a female with the ootheca hanging outside of her body. She is in the process of forming the ootheca. Once it is completely formed she will retract it into a special cavity in the tip of her abdomen. This is known as false ovoviparity.
7. A female that has been successfully fertilized will retain the eggs within this cavity for at least 60 days.
8. The nymphal roaches must molt, or shed their skin, several times to reach adulthood just like lizards and snakes. In hissing roaches, the skin or casing splits down the middle of the back and the roach slowly wiggles its way out. The newly-molted roaches are very whitish. The new skin takes many hours to harden, and as it does so the roach gradually darkens to its normal coloration.
9. The nymphal roaches will molt six times during the course of their lives. The last molt occurs about five months after the nymph was born. At this last molt the nymphal roaches become sexually mature adults.
10. Adult roaches never molt again. They may live for two or more years.
11. There are three ways to determine the sex of the cockroach. The easiest is to look at the thorax. The thorax is the second of the three sections into which the roach body is divided. The first section is the head, and the third one is the abdomen. The part of the thorax that is just behind the head is called the prothorax. In both sexes the upper surface of this prothorax is developed into two protuberances. In the females the development is slight. In the male, in contrast, the protrusions stand out, making the prothorax appear to be the head of a vertebrate animal.
12. The second way is to look at the feelers or antennae. The antennae are long, whip-like structures found on the head. Adult males have antennae with many laterally-projecting sensory hairs. These hairs give their antennae a fuzzy look, especially near the base. The antennae of the female lack these hairs.
13. The third way of determining sex is to look at the tip of the abdomen, or third section of the body. At the tip of the abdomen there is a ventral plate. In the male this plate is much narrower than in the female.
14. The hiss is produced by a pair of spiracles, or breathing tubes, on the fourth segment of the abdomen (counting from the front). A pair of spiracles is present on most of the abdominal segments. These spiracles allow air to seep deep within the tissues where it can oxygenate the muscles. The spiracles also allow carbon dioxide to diffuse outward and escape from the body. All the spiracles have a constant inflow and outflow of gases, however, those on the fourth segment have been modified to take advantage of this flow to produce a sound, much as in a wind instrument.
15. Forcing air through spiracles on the abdomen does the hissing. Air sacs work like bellows and squeeze out the air. They are the only insects to make sounds this way.
16. There are as many as five different hisses that are used to protect territory, warn of danger, and in courtship behaviors. Pairs communicate by hissing, or through stances and stereotyped actions.
17. Although many species of cockroaches have wings, this species is secondarily wingless.
18. Cockroaches, in general, are one of the planet’s most durable animals. Some species of cockroaches are resistant to doses of radiation 100 times that which would kill a human! They have adapted to many habitats worldwide and will eat nearly anything. Some can survive freezing temperatures for two days and they can go without food for three months. There are over 3,500 species of cockroaches, but fewer than 30 species are considered pests to humans.
19. Although quite large, hissing cockroaches are not the biggest cockroach species in the world-Australia’s burrowing cockroach, Macropanesthia rhinoceros, is heavier and the giant cockroach from the Caribbean, Blaberus giganteus, is longer.
20. Hissing roaches naturally carry small mites which roam over their bodies. So far as can be determined, the mites cause no serious harm to the roaches but apparently do not benefit them either. These mites are non-parasitic and completely harmless to humans.
2`1. They are an important source of food for other animals. Insects have 3 times more protein than chicken or beef, weight for weight.
22. Madagascar hissing cockroaches have recently become a common pet. They make ideal teaching insects because they don’t bite, don’t fly, and are generally odorless and not very active.
23. Any critter that has survived unchanged for over 300 million years must be pretty remarkable. Cockroaches are exactly that, and as much as they disgust us and potentially harm us, you still have to admire what they can do.
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