They are notorious for being so well adapted to urban life; plenty of water, shelter, food. I’ve lived in old buildings before, and once in a while I come across one of the little buggers. (man, do they creep me out!)
But in my entire life I don’t believe I’ve seen a roach in the wild. I’m not that big of a outdoorsman, but you’d think that I’d have seen one by now. Aren’t there trillions of 'em? Where are they all? I see ants inside and outside all the time… other bugs too.
But where are all the roaches? Did they all move to the city during the Great Depression, and never look back?
we tend to have more since we go ahead and kill every thing in our house, especially things that like to eat cockroaches so they’re magnifyed. I’ve seen them in the wild, under stumps and stuff, but we give them this great place to live, lots of food and no predators so their populations explode.
I grew up in the rural South, and I used to see them in the wild all the time. The big palmetto bugs, anyway. You could generally find them scurrying under and around dead logs in the woods.
Remember roaches are nocturnal or, at the very least, they shun light. Ever turn on the light and see roaches scatter?
So, if you want to find them in the wild you’d probably need to actively look for them (turn over rocks and stumps and the like). They’re not likely to be wandering about in plain sight. If they were they’d be easy pickings for predators which, as brother rat pointed out, they don’t have much of in a city. Lots of birds and mice and whatever else out in the wild however to keep them under control.
Good point. They are most definitely nocturnal. Even in the city, you don’t see them out and about during the day. Stroll around on a warm summer night, though, and you can spot them scurrying around on the sidewalks. So unless you’ve been strolling around in the woods at night, or turning over logs, you’ve never given yourself a chance to see cockroaches in the wild.
What kind of roaches are you referring to? Those big, black buggers, which we in the South call palmetto bugs, don’t live in houses. I see them under the pampus shrubs outside my house, and, unfortunately, occasionally inside. But they just come and visit inside. Outside is where they live. Perhaps not in the wild, however, as it is too far from their easy food prey: our houses.
German roaches, however, and others of that ilk, actually live in houses, so they won’t be found outside, let alone the wild. I guess through evolution they have found a niche in houses. An occasional palmetto bug is not good, but if you see German roaches and similar types, you have big-time trouble.
Cockroach is a genus or a family (I don’t know the scientific name or which it is), but it has many species, just like the family of birds have many genuses and species. The palmetto bug (again, I don’t know the proper name - they’re sometimes called waterbugs since they like to be around water) are those big, black suckers. Asian roaches, German roaches, etc. are smaller and brown. Those have different appearances, but they’re all brown and smaller than the dreaded palmetto bug.
You can search for more specifics at any search engine.
I saw a story in National Geographic long ago about an entomologist who studied roaches, and the story said he could go out into the Central American jungle at night and swing a net overhead once and bring it down with fifty species of roaches in it. So they are out there.
There are more than one genus of roaches, but as far as I know the ones we’re familiar with are all from the genus Blatella.
Here’s a good site for anyone who thinks they’ve seen an albino roach. Be sure to click on the link that says “darkening and hardening.”
You want roaches? Come to the Gulf coast and check out the action on the piers over the water where the boats come in. They walk them on leashes down there. Those roaches use Raid for deodorant. Don’t try to step on one, you just piss him off.
Yeah, and in Orlando, they were debating setting up special commuter lanes for the waterbugs. Damn things were bigger than Buicks. I dropped a brick on one, and I swear I heard the thing laugh.
Yes, but I’ve also turned on the light and seen them go on about their business. And walk across the room in broad daylight. And live, by the dozen, under a roach spray can that was left on a counter. And be sprayed with a similar poison and keep twitching for over two weeks (the marvel of the event made us let it stay, to see how long it would last; when we removed it it was still going).
I have seen apartment-building cockroach infestations that would make the Orkin Man™ want to change professions. I swear I hate those little fuckers. Fortunately, despite my having an apartment in NYC directly above the kitchen of a restaurant, I have seen all of two roaches in just over a year. They were literally the size of my thumb, and died before we could get better acquainted.
Just a little something to look forward to, Bob. Remember, they are more scared of you than you are of them. Ok, that was a load of crap…just try to go for the antenna first, you might disorient them long enough to get away.
One difference between palmetto bugs and roaches, I’m told, is that Palmetto Bugs fly. I hope it’s a difference, at least. I’d really be freaked out by flying roaches.
When I visited New Orleans several years ago I saw a huge roach right out on the sidewalk. I didn’t think it was a “wild” bug, but it certainly wasn’t inside a house. Maybe they just have really tough roaches in The Big Easy. Or else it was drunk out of its skull on Hurricanes.
