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Good day. When I was little, I constantly asked my mother about the life expectancy of various animals and insects.
I don’t even know why this was what interested me at that age. But the fact remains.
I remember the first time I saw a cockroach. She considered for a long time how and where he was crawling until he was slammed. I also voiced my standard question to mom. Do you want to know how many domestic cockroaches live? How long can they do without food? I will give all the details on these issues in the article below.
The content of the article:
- 1 How many domestic cockroaches live in different conditions
- 2 How many cockroaches live in different conditions
- 3 Home cockroaches: species, bites, how much they live and where they hide
- 4 How many cockroaches live without food and water
- 5 How many domestic cockroaches live without food and water?
- 6 How many cockroaches live?
How many domestic cockroaches live in different conditions
Many are familiar with cockroaches firsthand. These insects can be seen both in the village house and in the city apartment. How many domestic cockroaches live? They are able to live without food and water for a long time.
There are more than 4 thousand species of cockroaches in the world. Some of them live next to a person. The most common of them are black and red. Redheads are also called Prussians. These insects have a length of 10-15 mm.
They have large wings and a long mustache, which help to navigate in space and communicate with other insects. The insect has developed legs, on which it moves very quickly. It lives in warm conditions, most often in people's homes.
Black species can be up to 5 cm long. Wings of females are short, of males - long. Females are 5 cm in length, males are much smaller - only 2-3 cm. They live in warmth, often close to humans. American cockroaches look like Prussians in color. These insects are up to 5 cm long. Females are larger than males.
It enters our country with parcels. These insects live in houses and apartments. Its large size does not allow him to hide in the cracks, so the fight against him does not present any difficulties.
Habitats and habits
This question is interesting to many. The owners of apartments and houses in which these guests live are especially interested in him. These insects are unusually tenacious creatures. Without food, they cost 40 days. And absolutely everything serves as food for them, even concrete and brick. The main condition for their life is the presence of water. Therefore, they settle closer to its sources.
In the apartment, such a place is a bathroom and a kitchen. When water is found, insects begin to search for food. Their digestive system is designed in such a way that it digests a wide variety of products of organic origin.
After 2, after a maximum of 4 weeks, the offspring is thrown off in a warm place with sufficient humidity. Nymphs hatch from the ooteka. These are small (up to 2-3 mm) white cockroaches. Nymphs gradually blacken, their shell hardens. Before the nymph turns into an adult cockroach, several links pass.
The life expectancy of an adult is 20-30 weeks. Insects usually prefer nooks in hard-to-reach spots for their habitat. They can be found behind the refrigerator or under it, under the sink, baseboard, in various crevices. In their corners they live in fairly large groups.
In the afternoon, they try not to crawl out of their minks, since their mode of life is nocturnal. At night and in the early morning, when everyone in the house is sleeping, they manage to eat crumbs and small pieces of food that are found on the floor or on the kitchen table.
In daylight, they appear only in cases where their burrows do not accommodate all individuals. Their appearance during the day is a signal for taking measures to exterminate insects.
For a more fruitful fight against cockroaches, you need to know the places of their resettlement. Insects to look for:
- Under the fridge
- Behind the fridge
- Under the sink
- Under the bath
- Behind heating appliances and pipes
- Under the skirting boards
- Behind the kitchen cabinets
- In the mechanisms for hanging cabinet doors
- In the bins.
These are the most favorite places of their settlement.
Whether a cockroach lives in one place or another, it is easy to determine by the smell and black dots of feces remaining in the places of active life of insects.
They mainly eat foods with a high content of organic substances:
- Sweets and sugar
- Beer
- Bread crumbs and flour products
- Toilet paper and napkins
- Meat
- Wallpaper and glue
- Spoiled and rotting products
- Stockings, socks and linen
- Books, magazines, newspapers
Period of life and vitality
A red cockroach from a nymph turns into an adult in the summer at a temperature of about 30 ° C after 2 months. If the temperature is 20 ° C, this transformation takes up to 6 months.
A black cockroach lives less than a red one for a couple of months. Without food and drink, the life expectancy of cockroaches is reduced. Without food, a red cockroach lives about 50 days. The life of a black cockroach without food can be 70 days.
This is due to the fact that domestic cockroaches are cold-blooded creatures. They do not spend energy on maintaining a constant temperature of their body. In the absence of food, they simply can hide and wait for the appearance of food.
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The survivability of cockroaches drops sharply with a decrease in ambient temperature. The Prussians begin to die already at a temperature of -1 ° C. Therefore, cold is a good method of combating these creatures. How many years have insects of this species lived without water? Water is the main thing in the life of cockroaches.
Without non-viability lasts up to 7 days. Moisture evaporates rapidly from the surface of the shell, and the insects dry out and die. That is why the Prussians are more willing to eat moistened food or its waste. It is easier to digest in the body and contains enough moisture.
Can an insect live without a head?
Weird question. But after a series of experiments, American scientists were able to prove that the headless cockroach also continues to live (up to 9 days). The thing is that their circulatory system is not closed. They do not lose blood and therefore continue to live. But in this case, they can’t get food and water.
The brain does not take part in breathing. It is not particularly needed for life, as in all parts of the body there are ganglia - nerve nodules. They are fully responsible for all reflexes. The insect can move its legs, get up and move.
Temperature effect
The activity of cold-blooded insects depends on temperature. Cockroaches love warmth. The optimum temperature for them is from +2 to + 28 ° C. It is at this level that it is always maintained in residential premises. Therefore, our neighbors often become cockroaches.
At what temperature does death occur? At 0 ° C, all life functions, including reproduction processes, slow down in insects. At temperatures from -5 to -10 ° C, individuals of insects die in 30-40 minutes. With a subsequent decrease in air temperature, cockroaches die even faster.
The high ambient temperature is also detrimental to them. With heat above 28 ° C, cockroaches lose a large amount of moisture, which they really need.
Upon reaching 50 ° C, death occurs in a few hours. This can well be used in the fight against the hated kitchen neighbors. It is worth remembering that cockroaches are afraid of boiling water. It can also be used to control insects. Boiling water is simply poured a little into the cracks where pests nest.
Popular Pest Control Products
You can deal with these red and black pests with cold, heat and many other means:
- Boric acid
- Disinfectants
- Folk methods.
Boric acid has long been used as a means to combat cockroaches. She shows very good results in practice. Insect lures are made from boric acid powder. Pests die after sample testing and infect their brethren. For people living indoors, boric acid is absolutely safe.
The folk methods of struggle include the use of essential oils of various plants. Cockroaches do not tolerate the smell of cedar oil and eucalyptus, as well as red elderberry oil. The odors of fresh anise and mint scare them away.
Tips & Tricks
Cockroaches can be found under the refrigerator and under the sink, under the baseboard and behind the heating pipes. They most often settle near water sources. Without water, these insects cannot live for more than a week. Therefore, to combat them, you can block their access to water. Their number is growing every day.
If one insect appeared, then it can not be detected on time, since it leads a nocturnal lifestyle. In a year there will be a huge number of them. Many are familiar with this situation.
Therefore, to remove them, you need to often air the room, take out the garbage, hide food in bags. You can breed geraniums. Her smell repels cockroaches.
How many cockroaches live in different conditions
What is the life span of insects under favorable conditions? And what are these conditions? The optimum temperature for the life of this insect is considered to be + 30 ° C. Optimum humidity 50 - 70%.
Thus, the total life expectancy of red cockroaches is from 9 months to a year. Black has 2 years.
Are they able to live without water and food?
Water is a vital component for almost all living organisms on the planet. For the life process of domestic insects, it is extremely important. Therefore, without water, they can live a week on the strength. For life, they do not need pure water, they can get it from wet waste and food.
As for food, everything is much simpler. Without food, the Prusak is able to live more than a month. On average, a “hunger period" can be 40 days. This is quite a long time compared to life without water. What is the matter here.
But the fact is that cockroaches are poikilothermic organisms. That is, they are able to change the temperature of their body in accordance with environmental conditions. Thus, they do not spend energy on maintaining the internal temperature of the body.
So, they can do without food for a long time. A distinctive feature of poikilothermic organisms is their delayed metabolism. It proceeds 15 to 20 times slower than in warm-blooded organisms. All this allows insects to eat extremely rarely.
A cockroach can live without a head
Rumor has it that the Prusaks do not need a head for life. Is it so? No matter how strange and terrible it may sound, but it is. Through scientific research, it has been proven that these insects can exist without a head.
In addition, the head may exist for some time without a body. That sounds very strange. And even harder to imagine. But it's true.
“But the cockroach needs to breathe,” you think. And you will be absolutely right. The breathing process is carried out through the trachea and openings on the body, which means that it does not need a head for breathing. In humans, the brain sends impulses to the whole body. The Prussians are responsible for this ganglion. These are nerve nodes located throughout the body of the insect, so the brain is not involved here.
The life expectancy of a decapitated cockroach is not long, since without a head it is not able to eat. As we already know, an insect can survive a week without water.
Speaking about the stamina of the Prussians, one cannot fail to mention the radioresistance of insects. Simply put, cockroaches are more resistant to radiation than animals and humans. The lethal dose of radiation for red cockroaches is 15 times the dose for humans.
Home cockroaches: species, bites, how much they live and where they hide
Many people know home cockroaches, and those who have visited these insects know firsthand how difficult it is to get rid of this “invasion”. Many, having bought an apartment in a new building, having settled in it, find that tenants appeared there much earlier than the owners.
How do they get into the house?
So how do cockroaches infiltrate a house? In fact, cockroaches can get into the home in a variety of ways. We list the most popular of them:
For optimal existence, cockroaches need only food, all other conditions are unconditionally suitable for them, and there is enough food in our apartments (crumbs, unwashed plates, left pieces of bread on the table, etc.).
Another interesting way to get cockroaches into an apartment is in a shopping bag. It will not be difficult for cockroaches to "accidentally" get into a bag or bag in which you put something you just bought. Very often people settle cockroaches in the house with their own hands when they buy furniture, clothes or appliances from their hands.
Of course, there is nothing to eat for a cockroach in such things, but it could accidentally get in there and calmly move to a new house. It's no secret that there are plenty of cockroaches in the grocery stores, so you need to be careful in the stores too. But in grocery stores it can be found very often.
The most unexpected way to penetrate the premises of cockroaches is the delivery of parcels. Today, 70% of the population use online stores that cooperate with mail delivery, etc.
It is in parcels from foreign countries that you can most often find these parasitic insects. It is in this way that cockroaches appeared in our country that live in completely different countries.
The most annoying way is when we bring cockroaches into the house with our own hands. Returning from guests, carefully inspect bags, shoes, pockets on clothes, because cockroaches “love” to travel, and will gladly move to your house.
Even if you brought a cockroach into the house yourself, or delivered it to you by mail, believe me, you will not immediately notice it, because cockroaches can disguise themselves, and if you do not look for them, they will catch your eye only when there are so many of them that they there is not enough space in one room and they will begin to crawl into others.
In order to easily detect these insects, you need to know where the home cockroaches are hiding in the house.
Where are they hiding?
Most often, cockroaches climb into the bathrooms, namely toilets, bins, under the bathtub, specifically where no one will look for them, and from where they can take and “spread” infections, bacteria and viruses throughout the apartment.
Cockroaches prefer dark places, so during the day they hide behind cabinets, a refrigerator, under the sink, and they hide in large numbers, and not individually.
Therefore, leaving dirty dishes overnight or not throwing out garbage for a long time is an “excellent” habit that promotes the propagation of cockroaches.
After the cockroaches are found in the apartment, many mistakenly believe that they can not be poisoned and after a few days or weeks they themselves will leave the room or simply die out. If we knew how wrong we were, we would start the persecution immediately. Here you can read how to deal with cockroaches.
How many live?
It is very easy to answer the question of how many domestic cockroaches live, since cockroaches can be called the most tenacious "parasites", because they live on average about nine months.
Water is a real medicine for insects, because even after bullying, a cockroach can survive if heated by water.
Bites
Yes, the presence of cockroaches in the apartment is a real problem, but not many people know that these insects are also scary because they can bite a person, and quite painfully.
Cockroaches are able not only to bite, but also to get to the epidermis so that blisters, skin erosion, etc.
A crust most often appears above the bite site, but the skin under it heals for a very long time, accompanied by rotting or infection.
Varieties
Very often, discussing cockroaches, people come to the conclusion that cockroaches are different, because even in one apartment you can see two varieties at once. Yes, there are a lot of varieties of home cockroaches.
The red home cockroach is better known as the Prusaka. This variety is the most common, and it was this cockroach that was one of the first to appear in the apartments and houses of our country. Red cockroaches are common in many countries, therefore, around the world they carry more than twenty items.
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The banana cockroach got its name because of its bright green color. It is distributed in the tropical zone, and came to us when transporting fruit. This insect is very unpretentious, despite the fact that it came from afar.
A banana cockroach can even eat dry cat food, so in the apartment he will definitely find something to feast on. Especially if fruits always lie on the kitchen table, as is customary in many families.
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A black cockroach is not as widespread today as its red-haired friend, but it still appears in apartments, despite the fact that it prefers cellars for life. It is worth noting that black cockroaches breed much slower than red ones.
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American periplanet (American cockroach) refers to feed cockroaches, since it reaches large sizes, quickly multiplies and grows. In order for the cockroaches to not leave the breeding place, it is worthwhile to carefully monitor them, and constantly treat the container with petroleum jelly.
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Madagascar cockroach is one of the most beautiful varieties. Some lovers of exotic bred such cockroaches at home, and argue that such a "cockroach" can easily replace a fish or a turtle. After all, to observe its development is no less interesting. In this article you can learn how to keep Madagascar cockroaches at home.
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The Egyptian cockroach is dangerous not only for people, but for animals, as it is a carrier of various diseases. And even without a bite, it can infect with some disease.
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A Turkestan cockroach is used to feed terrarium animals, but it can also be found in an apartment, because it is unpretentious in food, and it needs very little for life.
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Harm done
The presence of cockroaches in the apartment is a real disaster, and the harm caused by cockroaches can be talked about endlessly.
Firstly, insects spread infections around the apartment, secondly, they can bite hosts, thirdly, they negatively affect the psyche, and fourthly, they simply cause uncomfortable sensations.
In addition, cockroaches hit in the pocket, so everything that they visited becomes unusable, and every time you have to buy fresh bread, hide toilet paper, sugar bowl, etc.
Interesting Facts
A lot of interesting facts are connected with cockroaches. For example, few people know that in Russia, a black cockroach was a fairly respected insect. If there was no cockroach in the house, this was considered a bad omen, and spoke of the poor owners. There are a lot of sayings, songs, ditties, etc. about a black cockroach.
It is not easy to get rid of cockroaches, but if you show willpower and perseverance, then to achieve this goal is quite realistic!
How many cockroaches live without food and water
Cockroaches settled in the house? It is unlikely that anyone will like this neighborhood. Most people immediately look for ways to poison them, but some prefer to wait until the insects die on their own, for example, after the owners leave for the cottage.But having found out how many cockroaches live without food and water in the apartment, the decision will have to be changed. It turns out that insects are so tenacious that it’s hard to imagine.
Normal life cycle
Most often, red cockroaches appear in a person’s housing, or Prussians — insects with a body from light brown to dark brown. Black cockroaches are less common, but, as a rule, they settle only in houses and apartments with high humidity (old houses, with leaking water pipes or a damp basement).
The life cycle of pests differs from what many insects have. They do not have a pupal stage, so the cycle is considered incomplete. It looks like this:
- Fertilization of the female by the male.
- Oviposition in a strong capsule, or ooteca.
- Carrying a capsule with eggs on the stomach, later - storing it in a secluded place.
- The exit of nymphs up to 3 mm in size, transparent-whitish in appearance, resembling a small cockroach.
- Shedding nymphs (6-10), at the end of which insects acquire a dark color and hardness of chitinous cover.
- The appearance of adults - an adult insect.
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In the form of larvae, pests exist for about 60 days, if the room is very warm. When the temperature is reduced to 22-23 degrees or less, molting occurs more slowly (up to 6 months).
Males usually die faster than females. In houses and apartments, where the temperature is constant, and airing is rare, pests will multiply very quickly - for batteries, cabinets, wallpaper.
How do insects exist in adverse conditions?
Difficult periods can occur in everyone, including home Prusaks. In this case, life expectancy becomes an order of magnitude less. In extreme conditions, they survive, but only until a certain period.
A tropical climate or life in the southern latitudes allows insects not to be afraid of temperature changes. But in the middle lane they are often forced to endure inconvenience, for example, when the heating is turned off.
If the temperature is reduced to -5, the insects die immediately, however, for this you will have to risk the entire heating system.
As you know, even radiation does not kill pests. In fact, this is not so. The radiation dose that the insect can withstand is 15 times greater than the human dose, and yet it is not infinite. If the insect is exposed for a long or long time, it will die too.
Survival without food and drink
How many cockroaches live in an apartment without food and water? These cold-blooded insects do not spend power on regulating body temperature, and their metabolism is dozens of times slower than in humans.
That is why they can fall into a kind of hibernation and starve for a long time. For example, up to 1.5 months the Prussians live freely, up to 2.5 months - black insects without food.
With severe hunger, he may well eat something that is unfit for food:
- hair,
- paper
- pieces of skin, etc.
It happens that from hunger pests eat their own antennae or paws, or attack their relatives.
It is known that cockroaches can eat even inedible things (paper, hair, etc.), and can also eat something like that.
Through the vessels in the body, moisture evaporates regularly, so the insect “dries” and dies in about a week. Even a dense carapace will not be able to retain water in the body. Therefore, in the question of how to get rid of cockroaches, it is necessary to take into account such a feature and completely block their access to water.
Does a cockroach live without a head?
The question of how many days a cockroach can live without a head will seem strange to a layman. Of course, not everyone will catch a cockroach, tear off his head and let go. But similar experiments were carried out by scientists.
It turns out that for 7-9 days the insect also exists without a head. This feature is due to the openness of the circulatory system, central nervous system and gastrointestinal tract of the insect. If you remove your head, blood on your neck will be baked, blood vessels and other organs and systems will continue to operate.
The head of a cockroach can also live on its own if dripped on it with nutrient solutions.
Thus, the survivability of cockroaches is high, and it is not worth hoping that they themselves will die without food in a couple of weeks. The only thing that can be done is to completely deprive them of water, and then they will definitely cease to harm the person.
How many domestic cockroaches live without food and water?
It is impossible to imagine a resident of our latitudes who did not see a red cockroach in the eyes. Among the people he received the "home" "German" nickname "Prusak", since it was from there that there was an invasion of insects in Russian houses.
They live only indoors, more often in an apartment, because they are defenseless before all predators, although the duration of their wrecking life is long: about a year.
What affects life expectancy
A number of factors affect the duration of the existence of red cockroaches:
- suitable comfortable home temperature (about 20 heat);
- the availability of food, and they feed, and they are completely unappetizing from a human sight substances;
- lack of strong radiation background.
In the conditions of an adult, red domestic insects live for 9-10 months, but the danger is that females during this time have 4 times to lay eggs and hatch. Black domestic varieties live longer than red ones. so black cockroaches live up to two years, but they are less prolific.
How many red and black barbel live in an apartment?
Ginger pests, having chosen the territory in the apartment, flood it quickly. The cycle of special development of the insect passes the stage of the "pupa" and consists of three stages:
- the egg ripens for about 4 weeks and in this case is enclosed in a shell - an odeca;
- the larva, otherwise called the "cockroach nymph" lives 1.5 months,
- an adult pest survives even up to two years and at the same time has the ability to multiply efficiently.
In cold conditions in the apartment it is impossible to fully develop the first stages of insects, therefore freezing of housing is recommended as an effective method of fighting for housekeeping.
Studies have shown that imposed stereotypes about long life in a vacuum, without food and the head of an insect, are far-fetched, as evidenced by video experiments.
How long does a cockroach live without a head? Indeed, these domestic insects are able to live without their heads. American researchers have established a nine-day period of such a life.
She does not need them to breathe, because special tubes on the body are responsible for this, and coagulation in a blood clot will not allow blood loss to occur. The nervous system is not connected with the head center. Researchers have found that while the body lives independently and the head exists autonomously.
Without food, life expectancy. It’s worth sorting out another “nutritious” myth.Belonging to the cold-blooded class allows you to control metabolic processes and live without food even up to 70 days, and remain active.
No air. The adaptability of barbel is simply fantastic: the respiratory processes of a domestic pest are different from human ones. Holding its own breath, the insect lives, retaining the moisture it needs.
But if you imagine an experiment in which the insect is in a vacuum, without air, it turns out that he lives like this for 40 minutes.
How many live after disinfection
Professional home disinfection involves the use of strong substances poisonous to insects, and, subject to the requirements, manages them at a time:
- a three-hour post-disinfection sanitation, which involves closed home premises in the apartment, takes 3 hours;
- 15 minutes airing
- actually cleaning dead pests.
The use of special special equipment at home suggests that within 1-2 weeks all domestic pests will be destroyed.
Cockroaches after disinfestation did not disappear, what should I do?
So, the result should be checked approximately in half a month.
In case of ineffective home pest control in the apartment, you should contact the service again for a free repetition of the procedure.
Where did the insects disappear in the apartment?
The owners are worried by the fact of the unexpected disappearance of the mustached apartment neighbors. They can leave their home for several reasons:
- strong electromagnetic radiation;
- perfect new generation home-made insecticides;
- modern decoration products that turn out to be too tough for insects.
So, cunning ginger cockroaches live in an apartment even in the most difficult home conditions. At the same time, even having hit him with shoes, one cannot be sure of the death of a barbel due to the peculiarities of the body cover. The most effective deprivation in an apartment is the lack of water and heat.
How many cockroaches live?
It is rather difficult to answer the question regarding how many domestic cockroaches live. It depends on many factors. There are legends about this type of insect, as if they were able to live for several years, and sometimes even without food, water and a head.
Separately, it must be said that they demonstrate a higher resistance to radiation compared to humans. They withstand radiation 15 times more intensively than the destructive dose for people. Such characteristics of insects determine their adaptability to different living conditions, which is why fighting cockroaches at home is not so simple.
Life span
One of the most interesting questions remains how many cockroaches live. To answer it, you need to familiarize yourself with the growth characteristics of these pests. All representatives of these insects have an incomplete development cycle.
This means that a larva (nymph) hatches from an egg, which after a series of molts becomes a full-fledged adult (adult). However, how much time passes from the moment of hatching to the physiological death of the Prusak?
Conditionally, the entire life cycle that red, black or any other types of cockroaches go through can be represented in the following sequence of events:
- After laying eggs in the ooteca (the capsule where the female stores them) and until it swells, it takes an average of 4-5 weeks.
- Further, the female drops the oteka in some secluded place, where in a couple of days small (up to 3 mm) larvae hatch from it.
- Nymphs already lead an almost normal way of life for cockroaches at home, with the exception of the breeding function.
After a certain number of links, the larvae mature and turn into adults (adults). At a temperature of 30 ° C and above, this process in red cockroaches takes about 2 months. With a thermometer within 22-25 ° C, the time increases to six months.
Some species may exist for a longer period. So Madagascar cockroaches live almost two years. A representative of a black insect, which quite often bothers people, can exist for about 1.5 years.
How long do without food and water?
Given that cockroaches are cold-blooded creatures, they can do without food for quite a long time. Cockroaches do not spend energy on maintaining a stable body temperature, which allows them to eat extremely rarely.
An insect can last one standard meal for 40-70 days (depending on the type of pest). Slow metabolism contributes to a very leisurely expenditure of energy reserves, which prevents hunger from developing rapidly. However, despite this, there are quite a few substances that cockroaches are afraid of.
If we talk about water, then the situation is a little different. For any organism, moisture is the source of life. The Prussians are no exception. They need water for digestion, the functioning of the circulatory system, respiration and many other vital metabolic processes in the body.
Without it, cockroaches die in a week. Therefore, if at home there is an invasion of pests, it is worth taking care of eliminating a variety of fluid leaks from taps, flowerpots, etc.
The ability of cockroaches to live without food and water determines their highest adaptability.
How many headless Prussians live?
American scientists have proven that cockroaches have the ability to exist without a head. Not only that, their head can also work offline, but with a number of flaws.
Headless cockroaches live thanks to the following points:
- For breathing, they use small tubes that are not located on the head, but throughout the body.
- To support the basic functions of life support, they do not need a brain. All processes are carried out using separate nerve ganglia located throughout the body.
- The circulatory system functions perfectly and without a head.
The only limitation that sets the time how long a cockroach lives without a head is the lack of a mouthpart with the ability to absorb food. Therefore, in this state, the Prussians withstand up to 40 days of existence.
One way or another, but cockroaches remain one of the most enduring creatures on the planet. When they appear in the house, you must immediately begin to fight with them, since their population is growing at a tremendous pace.
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