bites you bites you

The Blattodea

(Blatta orientalis, glmory)

Sister to the mantids, on the other side of Dictyoptera, are the Blattodea: the roaches and termites (for brevity sake, the term "roaches" will be used to refer to all of Blattodea). There are 7600 species with a global distribution.

(Polyphaga aegyptica, savvaszafeiriou / Cryptocercus punctulatus, muir)

Roaches are a very successful group of insects that frequently exhibit social behavior, and are generally omnivorous scavengers. Like all Polyneoptera they are hemimetabolous. Many roaches have a flattened, oval body shape that helps them to navigate confined spaces in the wild and within human dwellings.

(Periplaneta americana, Len Worthington / Therea petivereana, adit)

Typical cockroaches are famous for producing oothecae (egg cases), similar to their mantid siblings. These cases are deposited in the ground, glued to a surface, or retained in the females body, and often have distinctive shapes. When looking at detritus sample, I have come across a number of cockroach oothecae.

(Hatching ootheca, Steve & Alison1)

Sociality is a famous characteristic of roaches in general. However, one branch of Blattodea, a sister group to the Cryptocercidae family of roaches, took this sociality to the extreme: the termites (Isoptera). Termites are truly eusocial, like ants, with a division of labor and reproduction into particular castes. They are also famous for the massive and elaborate mounds built by certain species, as well as fungal-farming behavior exhibited by some species. Termites beat humans to agriculture, architecture, and city-building, it would seem.

(Macrotermes bellicosus queen, andreasalimbeni / M. bellicosus soldiers & workers, alexanderr / cross-section of termite mound, showing air-cooling system, Lizzie Harper)

Cockroaches (including termites) often get a bad reputation as "pest" animals. While certain synanthropic species have been transported to other parts of the world and become established outside of their native range, there is a far greater diversity of cockroaches than just the few species that get the exterminator called. I have personally handled pet roaches many times, and they are very gentle creatures.

German cockroaches I think are the ones that most commonly infest homes. Unlike other species, even others that can infest homes, they are found almost entirely in association with humans, in places like houses and restaurants and warehouses and not really in the wild unless they happen to wander out from inside.

So because of that, it's more difficult to talk about any positive effects on ecosystems they might have. I guess in terms of looking at them in a positive light, they are incredible survivors and adapters! They have very efficiently filled the niche of household scavenger. They don't really have predators indoors, although certainly if they happen to get outside things like birds and rats and frogs/toads will eat them. But they breed prolifically, are great at hiding in literally any available tiny space, and have evolved resistance to pesticides, so they are very hard to get rid of! We can definitely admire them for being so great at making more cockroaches, which is their goal! :)

Also...they are very cute.

I see them swarm day, after day, after day. The ants crawling through the cracks in the corner of the wall, like blood traveling through veins; flies singing their beautiful song above and on the fruits of labor resting on the table.

I don't just see it, I feel it. In every step I find the buzzing of wings reaches my mind and sometimes I believe I have wings, too. In the mind and flesh I feel the love of the insects that roam the earth. I feel as if I writhe with them, deep in the soil; feeling and seeing and never knowing beyond the damp.