Cockroaches are omnivores, like us. For the most part they will eat anything organic. Mostly they eat dead or immobile things. As indicated elesewhere in the FAQ, they rarely bite a human but might nibble on a sore in the middle of the night when an animal is sleeping. They will eat the glue off the back of postage stamps and the glue bindings off the backs of books, traditional glue being derived from animal protein.

Glesne, Cockroaches are fast enough. They have giant fibers in their ventral nerve cord that transmit the sensory info from their cerci, which sense air currents, directly to their thoracic ganglia which control their leg muscles. This is a reflex circuit which does not need any decision by the cockroach brain. It is fast enough to detect the air wave in front of a predator and allows the cockroach to scuttle away, avoiding capture.

Liz, The feet of insects including cockroaches are made up of a brush like pile which reacts with a surface like myriad weak suction cups. The weak forces involve adding together thousands of such individual adhering pillus ends and result in a strong enough force to suspend the body of a fly, a roach or even larger non-insectal critters such as lizards. To step the cockroach must remove the pilli individually in a wave, like ripping off some cellophane or an adhesive bandage.

Cockroaches (and most other insects) have two light receptors, one sensitive in the ultraviolet range and one in the green range. Many insects also have a third light receptor peaking in the blue. Most pest cockroaches are not attracted to light. They are active at night and if anything they might avoid light. However, if you have a patio that is lit you might be asking what type of light should you have in your patio lighting scheme.

Laurie, There is a pest cockroach, Periplaneta australasiae, which is common outdoors in the southern USA. It is commonly called the Australian cockroach. It is found worldwide as a pest and also called the greenhouse cockroach because of its predilection for establishing itself as a pest in the warmth of greenhouses at all latitudes. It is also found in western Australia. I am not sure of the etymology of the common name, 'Australian cockroach'.

http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/rolleston/plate_viii.html ... This is an illustration by GEORGE ROLLESTON published in 1870. Cockroaches shred food with their mouthparts and then swallow it using their salivary glands (e) and salivary reservoir (f) to moisten their food before it enters their crop (d).

Cockroaches, like all insects, breathe through a system of tubes called tracheae, a word similar to the name of the tube leading to our lungs. The tracheae of insects are attached to the spiracles which are small valved openings on the side of each body segment, excluding the head. Thus the cockroach can breathe without its head! The valves open when the CO2 level in the insect rises to an unacceptable level; then the CO2 diffuses out of the tracheae to the outside and fresh oxygen diffuses in.

First, few cockroaches die on their backs in the wild. Natural death of cockroaches probably occurs in the stomach of a bird, bat or other small animal. Second, Cockroaches are not used to living on a polished marble or vinyl floor. They are more used to a ruguous living plane including leaves and sticks and other vegetable debris.

I have been told that cockroaches are more resistant to radiation and in a world nuclear war, only the cockroaches would survive. But I have not seen any publication that discusses it with any credibility. I can give only an opinion of my own. I have irradiated cockroaches and constructed killing curves for them using gamma irradiation.

Yes, cockroaches do sleep, if you define it that way. Cockroaches have activity rhythms, i.e. regular times in the day when they are quiet and hide away from the rest of the world as well as wakeful times when they are active, seeking food, water and a mate. The subject of cockroach activity rhythms is well represented in the scientific literature (see my cockroach bibliography). In general, most pest species of cockroaches are active (i.e. awake) during the four hours after lights-out.

These "vectors" have been shown to carry a variety of disease-causing organisms. Some of these organisms are the cause of Salmonellosis, Shigellosis, Leptrospirosis, and a variety of other food-borne illnesses. The problem with rodent bait in a food facility is that rodents may carry the poisonous bait in their mouths and drop the bait throughout the facility, contaminating food, food contact surfaces, and food related items.

A cockroach and a carp are in two different Phyla. The cockroach is an Arthropod and the carp is a Vertebrate. The closest traditional link is that they are both in the Animal Kingdom.

Surprisingly, no. Anatolians tend to be "easy keepers", and an adult Anatolian will eat between 40 to 60 pounds of premium quality dog chow a month. As a puppy, an Anatolian should be fed a premium puppy food for the first year. Some breeders will use puppy food for the first 18 months, and then switch to a good adult food.

The college has a wonderful cafeteria that offers excellent food and also caters to vegitarian and diabetic style diets. Wide selection of choices will be available. Back to Top

I have never seen a cockroach glow under black light however other pests in more tropical or desert regions, the scorpions, do glow fluorescently. Scorpions are well known for this behavior. Their generally soft cuticle has fluorescent compounds. There is a famous picture on the cover of Science of a fluorescent scorpion. I once took a walk in the evening desert outside Albuquerque NM with a portable black light.