Why Are Cockroaches So Hard To Get Rid Of On Your Own?
Anybody who has ever dealt with an infestation of cockroaches can tell you that they are not easy to get rid of once you have them in your home. Even if you have never experienced a roach infestation, you have probably still gathered that roaches are unusually durable and resilient, even for insects. There are all sorts of factoids about roaches that people enjoy spreading around. One of the most popular “facts” regarding roaches is their apparent indestructibility in the face of nuclear blast. However, there are lesser-known reasons as to why roach populations are particularly difficult to destroy. It turns out that female roaches are capable of reproducing asexually.
According to researchers, roaches, along with sharks, snakes and termites, are capable of reproduction without fertilization. However, researchers are still unclear as to how this process occurs on a physiological level in roaches. Researchers do not yet know if this asexual reproduction occurs in female roaches only when males are not present, or if asexual reproduction can occur even when male roaches are present.
Researchers found that female roaches tend to reproduce faster asexually when they are grouped with other female cockroaches. This could result from the synchronization of the female roaches reproductive processes. Curiously, researchers also housed castrated male roaches with fertile female roaches. Theoretically, you may think that female roaches would reproduce asexually faster when they are in the presence of castrated male roaches. However, strangely enough, this is not the case, and female asexual reproduction remained steady even under these circumstances.
One of the more important finds involved the viability of the eggs produced asexually. Not surprisingly, the eggs produced asexually did not hatch nearly as often as eggs produced sexually. Researchers have many more questions concerning this phenomenon, but one thing is for sure, females can make more roaches even when no males are present.
Have you ever been victimized by a roach infestation that would not go away?
