Cockroaches

Most people hated this insect - the cockroach. Their flattened bodies, leathery wings, skittering legs & long, waving antennae give people the creeps.

People also hate roaches because they can be extremely difficult to get rid of. Roaches reproduce quickly & are hard to kill. They are particularly good at dodging & running from shoes, newspapers & other weapons, & several species have become resistant to insecticides.

But of the 4,000 roach species that exist in the world, only a handful of them plague homes & businesses. These include:

• Blatella germanica, the German cockroach
• Periplaneta americana, the American cockroach or palmetto bug
• Supella longipalpa, the brown-banded cockroach
• Blatta orientalis - the oriental cockroach

Roaches are primitive insects - they existed millions of years before dinosaurs did & have evolved very little since then. In spite of their unchanging nature, they've survived when other species have not. For example, dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, but cockroaches have thrived for 320 millions years.