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Fun Fact Cockroaches are speedy creatures. Featured Video. Article Sources. The Spruce uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Read More. While this may seem like an impressive athletic ability, what it really means is that they can spread germs and bacteria throughout a home very quickly.
In fact, the German cockroach is the most common of the cockroaches and has been implicated in outbreaks of illness and allergic reactions in many people. For reference, these babies are about the size of a speck of dust! So, not only are they fast, but they are also elusive, which is a dangerous combination for a pest known to transmit various diseases. Similar to other pests, this cockroach species is drawn to some alcoholic beverages, especially beer.
They are most likely attracted by the hops and sugar present in the drink. Only found in South America, this species also has a one-foot wingspan. It is believed that cockroaches originated more than million years ago in the Carboniferous era. The most common species is the German cockroach. Other cockroaches found in America include the brown-banded cockroach , American cockroach and oriental cockroach.
Cockroaches are able to go for so long without sustenance because they are cold-blooded insects. However, they can only survive for one week without water, which is why they are commonly found in humid or high-moisture areas around the home, such as basements and bathrooms.
These facts prove that cockroaches are some of the most adaptable creatures on earth, which makes controlling and eliminating a cockroach infestation all the more difficult. To get rid of cockroaches in your home, experts suggest keeping food sealed and stored properly, particularly in the kitchen, which should be cleaned daily to prevent crumbs and trash from building up.
In the new paper, professor Sheng Li and his team found that American cockroaches have the second-largest genome of any insect ever sequenced, right behind the migratory locust Locusta migratoria. Gene families related to taste and smell were much larger than those of other bugs, and scientists counted taste receptors in the roach.
German cockroaches possess a similar number of taste receptors , Schal said. Schal said that both roaches evolved this way long before humans ruled the world.
Resistance to toxic substances developed in roaches thanks to the abundance of toxin-producing bacteria in their environments and their tendency to eat rotten plant matter, he explained. In addition, the American cockroach has a large number of immunity genes, perhaps another adaptation to unsanitary environments and fermenting food sources, Li and colleagues wrote.
Authors were not surprised by this since American cockroaches can measure up to 2 inches 53 millimeters long. A greater understanding of the cockroach genome could help researchers come up with new ways to control theses pest species.
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