For The Love Of Cockroaches

[Ciro]

For The Love Of Cockroaches

Most people hate cockroaches and assume no one could love these insects. It's not true. There are people who recognize the value of cockroaches.

Cockroaches are favorite laboratory animals in both research and teaching. This is partially due to the ease with which cockroaches can be maintained. A large colony of cockroaches requires little space and minimal care. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who has had a cockroach problem in their home. In fact, one scientist once wrote, ”The laboratory investigator who keeps up a battle to rid his rat colony of cockroaches may well consider giving up the rats and working with the cockroaches instead.’

Cockroaches have been used widely to introduce students of all ages to the study of entomology. The cockroach serves as a model animal from which to learn the anatomy and physiology of insects. In many biology classes, students care for live cockroaches and, in the process, learn about the life habits of the insect. There is probably no greater spectacle in nature than the molting process in the insect world. Many students are first exposed to this biological phenomenon when caring for a cockroach. You can imagine their surprise when they find a newly molted white cockroach in their insect cage.

The American cockroach, Periplaneta americana, B.D. is used widely in teaching because of its large size. B.D. stands for Big Dick!

:D/

[Kat]

Why do you think they are called "cock"roaches anyway??? 8-[

Check out the movie Joe's Apartment? You'll love it. If the guy Joe looks a little familiar it is because he is the guy who plays Woody on Crossing Jordan (Jerry O'Connell)

Oh, and why is our chef talking about the virtues of cockroaches? hmmmmm. The only thing worse than biting into a slice of pizza and finding a cockroach is finding HALF a cockroach. (crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside) *ducking* *dicking* *ducking* errrrr ... uhm..... I'll shut up now. :-# Dayammm them bugs!

Kat

[Dragonfly]

Do you have anything against bugs, huh?!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

LOLOLOLOLOL...

I hadn't thought of that.

This ain't Cockroach Corner. This is the Dragonfly Den.

Michael

[L W HALL]

Two things.

1) when I was a wee fellow I found a cock-a-roach in the yard that was white and since I did not remember seeing one before I placed him in a mason jar and started feeding him. After a couple of days he turned dark and so my conclusion which I held for many years was he was starving and had lost his color due to lack of food. For some reason it didn't occur to me that there might have been plenty of food in the yard where I found him because I had always thought of cock-a-roaches as inside critters.

2) In the late seventies I was a manager for Pizza Hut in North Carolina and one day I came in the back door unexpectedly. My cooks(three teenage boys) didn't hear me and they were having a jolly old time putting bugs they had caught outside on the pizzas before slipping them in the oven. Bon Appetit!

Needless to say all three lost their jobs, although I did relent and give one kid his back at a later time when he came and talked to me.

L W