Tarakan biography

Do you think that the penguins are cute and affectionate? You are unlikely to be mistaken anyone will like the type of cockroach running around the kitchen floor. The negative emotions that we experience in relation to these creatures make us think that all cockroaches are equally repulsive. However, George Bekkaloni, the curator of the exposition of orthopteroid insects from the London Museum of Natural Sciences, adheres to the completely opposite opinion.

He is on the side of the cockroaches. According to Bekkaloni, this is a flagrant injustice. According to him, you can not write off all the cockroaches only because of hostility to 30 types. A fair, but not quite convincing argument: the variety of mammals is much more obvious. I recall how in childhood my parents took me on a trip to Sardinia, where our apartment was just teeming with cockroaches.

How much other representatives of this group of insects can differ from them? Over the next half hour I learned a lot of new things. Firstly, cockroaches live in completely different geographical regions. In the tropics and at low altitudes, where high temperature is constantly held, a variety of types of cockroaches is especially large. Nevertheless, some of them are able to live in more extreme conditions.

So, for example, the type of eupolyphaga Everstiana lives only on Mount Everest at an altitude more than sea level. The fact that cockroaches live in such different climatic conditions, undoubtedly, implies a variety of sizes and forms of these insects. The smallest species we know, Texas anthole from North America, chose the nests of the ants of leaf tires as a dwelling. Its length is only a few millimeters, and it looks tiny even against the background of its owners.

Unlike him, a huge cockroach Megaloblatta Blaberoides boasts an incredible wingspan - more than 18 cm. An even larger appearance is a giant cockroach -nosor, which lives in Queensland, Australia. The body length of this wingless cockroach reaches 8 cm, and weight - more than 30 g.

This cockroach of the size of almost the palm may seem dangerous. But he does not care about people. The author of the photo, Thinkstock Signature for the photo, a giant macropanesthia rhinoceros cockroach, many types of cockroaches perform similar environmental roles: they eat decaying organic materials, producing nutrients for other organisms. For many types of living creatures, including some people, cockroaches are a delicious snack.

What explains why many representatives of this group of insects in the process of evolution learned to skillfully disguise themselves so as not to become someone else's lunch or dinner. Panclora banana cockroaches have chosen a rather simple green camouflage, which helps them merge with the environment. Tarasans from the genus Perisphaerus to protect themselves, turn into a ball like armadillo.

Representatives of the genus Prosoplecta mimic under God's cows and, accordingly, have the same catchy red and black color. According to Bekkaloni, to achieve a rounded shape of the ladybug, this cockroach wraps the rear wings "around him like an umbrella." Some species, for example, cockroaches, can release a fluid stream to protect. But if you disturb the Madagascar hissing cockroach, it will make a scaring sound warning that you should not contact it.

It is not surprising that with such a rich experience in survival, the cockroaches learned to multiply in various ways. For some species, such a method of propagation as parthenogenesis is characteristic. Females produce individuals that are completely identical to themselves, and for this they do not need a mate or mating. In other species, a female, depending on the circumstances, can use both a sexual and an ascious model of reproduction.

Some simply leave it, while others bear this capsule in a brood bag, from which larvae later emerge. Flack cockroaches do not have egg capsules. The female lays eggs directly in the brood bag, where they receive a special nutrient similar to milk. According to Bekkaloni, this is "the most nutritious and high -calorie protein of all known to us." Thanks to this, well -developed offspring is born.

Does it sound familiar? In some cases, the female even cares about offspring after birth. So, for example, females of the species of Thorax Porcellana carry the cubs under the wings. This may seem very cute, if you don’t know that the larvae are sharp as a razor of the jaw, with which they cut the skin of the mother and eat her blood. However, this is not so. For a person, a deadly dose of irradiation is 10 Gray.

At first glance, such resistance to radiation may seem impressive, but in fact, according to Bekkaloni, "among insects this result is one of the lowest." Other species are able to survive by receiving an irradiation dose ten times higher. You can read the original of this article in English on the BBC Earth website. Read also.