If you remember, 15-20 years ago, the fight against cockroaches was a serious problem for many housewives. It is clear that the main root of evil is the lack of proper sanitation, but you can not all row under the same brush. No matter how clean and tidy the owners of a house or apartment are, there will still be products in the kitchen that can lure cockroaches. In addition, children can actively contribute to this, carelessly leaving crumbs or spilled sugar on the table.
Also the sensational question “how to deal with cockroaches? ” was often asked in hostels, hospitals and even Soviet canteens, which could be teeming with these insects. But after some time, the cockroach population began to decline significantly, and this was clearly noticed by many apartment owners. So what could it be about?
Cockroaches and the end of the world
There are rumors that cockroaches hide together before the invasion of serious cataclysms. It was rumored that their disappearance is connected with the impending end of the world. But it is not clear whether this is the end of the world in 2000, the "advertising" of which thundered several previous years, or 2012, about which a lot of words were also said in both official and unofficial sources. But, as we can see, the end of the world did not happen, and cockroaches made sure of this, in connection with which they decided to return to people again, and in recent years their activity has again increased significantly.
Development of the chemical industry
If we approach thoughts on this topic without jokes, then it is worth reporting that, according to entomological researchers, the mass flight of cockroaches was associated primarily with a sharp rise in the chemical industry, which provided people with effective means to combat insects whose immunity is ready for this. was not.
Myths about the disappearance of cockroaches
Also, many associate the disappearance of cockroaches with the destruction of the ozone layer, the development of the Internet, even with the Svobodny cosmodrome, and, of course, with mobile communications. The answer of scientists to this is that the only true opinion here is just about the effect on cockroaches of high-frequency mobile communication signals, which have a detrimental effect on them. Everything else is nothing more than fiction.
Why are cockroaches coming back?
As for the return of cockroaches and the new development of their population, the explanation is obvious here - many of their species have simply developed immunity to the once strong drugs and the effects of mobile communication frequencies. This is not surprising, because the cockroach is one of the most tenacious creatures on Earth, so you have to adapt ... True, human development does not stand still, because today we can also give a worthy chemical rebuff to these domestic pests.
Prices for pest control from cockroaches |
|
| Cultivated area | Price |
| 1-room apartment | 1200 rub. |
| 2-room apartment | 1450 rub. |
| 3-room apartment | 1750 rub. |
| 4-room apartment | 2250 rub. |
| 5-room apartment | 2650 rub. |
| MOS* | 1000 rub. |
*MOP - common areas
The disappearance of domestic cockroaches in the early 2000s was rapid. Only oil prices, consumer lending and Vladimir Putin's popularity grew more rapidly. At the same time, they began to joke on the Internet that the Putin regime ...
The disappearance of domestic cockroaches in the early 2000s was rapid. Only oil prices, consumer lending and Vladimir Putin's popularity grew more rapidly. At the same time, they began to joke on the Internet that the Putin regime even eradicated cockroaches.
I think that in another ten years they will quite seriously say that “under Putin there weren’t even cockroaches!” or, they say, “even cockroaches didn’t show their noses!”. In general, then one of the most important signs of our life disappeared. For two hundred years we lived side by side with them - and here it is. The phenomenon has sparked controversy. Various hypotheses have been put forward. Conspiratorial and even otherworldly character. But the exodus of cockroaches was only the beginning.
City rats, bedbugs and even May beetles gradually disappeared from sight. Moles have disappeared somewhere, having ceased to disfigure the English lawns of Rublyov's dachas. “A cockroach or any other synanthropic animal is very sensitive to changes in a person’s life. Society as a whole. Changes in the economy, social and political structure affect them no less than a person ... By the middle of the decade in Russia, changes in these factors, a sharp increase in well-being, forced nature to retreat. The advance of civilization caused the depopulation of cockroaches. But as soon as we take a step back, they will return,” said Dmitry Zhuzhikov, the leading entomologist of the country, Professor of the Faculty of Biology at Moscow State University. But his words were then lost among glamorous theories.
And this step back seems to have been taken. First, after the New Year, cockroaches reappeared. Then the rats became active. Moles went in the summer. And again, all these incredible coincidences with oil (already cheap), loans (which are not given), etc.
The main thing in the office of Professor MSU Zhuzhikov is not to peer into the interior. Otherwise, it will begin to seem that the walls, shelves and furniture are moving. Barely noticeable movement is going on everywhere. Motionless, surrounded by large glass jars, only Dmitry Pavlovich Zhuzhikov himself sits. This short elderly man is enthusiastically examining the contents of one of the containers (everything is moving there too, I won’t enumerate). It's been about three minutes since I came in, and he's watching everything. This “Professor Zhuk” or “Professor Tarakanov”, as students of the Faculty of Biology affectionately call him.
Excuse me, I have a small upheaval here, - Professor Zhuzhikov said quietly, not looking up from the cans. - The "Greys" almost crushed the "Americans".
This is probably a grand event for science, I suggested.
You think? The professor finally looked up at me. - And in my opinion, these gray cattle just left me without American cockroaches.
About five years ago, crowds of journalists went to Dmitry Zhuzhikov. They needed a solution to the mystery of the disappearance of cockroaches. More precisely, confirmation of near-scientific hypotheses that cockroaches were killed by mobile communications, genetically modified products or secret developments of Rospotrebnadzor. Professor Zhuzhikov disappointed journalists. He gave them simple, logical, devoid of charm fantasy and, apparently, therefore boring explanations of the reasons.
The disappearance of domestic insects went in parallel with the growth of the country's welfare.
The better we lived, the worse the cockroaches, - having covered the jar with a rag, the professor put it in the closet. - Amazing, right? But what do I mean by "better"? Traditionally, cockroaches live in historical centers, where centuries-old communications, wooden floors. And in Moscow, from a good life, the center began to cripple with offices. Of course, cockroaches in some cases gnaw on wires, but the office is not food.
Cockroaches were furiously poisoned by restaurants and supermarkets, furniture factories and dumpling factories. Disinsection took on a nationwide character.
Of course, all this increased sanitary and hygienic conditions. In general, the result is remarkable, it was possible to significantly reduce the number of cockroaches. Not to eliminate completely, it is absolutely unrealistic, but to make sure that they are not conspicuous. But if you look at other countries, everything is much calmer with cockroaches, cockroaches are perceived as inevitable companions ...
The professor dipped his hand into the box of papers and after a second showed the following data: "An ordinary US citizen can safely tolerate five cockroaches a week seen in his house." But America cannot be called a poor or underdeveloped country.
You know, the ideal condition for our cockroach is a cataclysm. A huge jump in numbers, one might say, was before my eyes after the war. All around devastation, unsanitary conditions. In fat stagnant years, a certain decline was recorded. Then perestroika, the nineties, and up again. Today's crisis also has the properties of a cataclysm. People are no longer up to cockroaches. There is tolerance.
The time and place of the meeting, the director of a small company for the removal of rodents and cockroaches Lev Akinchenko appointed with categorical young Moscow intellectual. Friday, six in the evening, cafe "Gogol". Given the theme, it would probably be hard to suggest a worse place. But Akinchenko threw away all my doubts at once with one phrase. “You can eat something,” he says, opening the menu. - I guarantee the quality is quite ... ”Then numerous illustrated brochures, booklets land on the table.
In half an hour we will go together for an urgent order: a resident of New Riga will lay out 15 thousand for a caught rat and traps for the future. Master Konstantin, a two-meter big man in overalls, will call for us: “I eliminate cockroaches, rats, moles - quickly and reliably.” In the cabin of his Gazelle, a giant Maine Coon cat Vasily will sit in an aristocratic pose ... For now, we are in a cafe. Akinchenko orders fish and a hundred grams of vodka for the waiter who comes up.
It’s impossible to restrain cockroaches, - shouting over the music and extraneous voices, Akinchenko said and pointed to the booklet. - The moment is lost, people no longer consider them a serious problem. Many companies reduced their sanitation costs last fall, and a couple of months later the cockroach was already on its way. We are sitting idle, orders have fallen by one and a half to two times. Plus, there is a weakening of control by the sanitary services. A significant part of small and medium-sized businesses have understood this in such a way that now it is possible to save on hygiene as soon as possible. With us, when you loosen your grip, it only gets worse.
But there were many complaints about the abuse of checks.
This is nonsense - in the end it even disciplined people. I will say more - there were even "cockroach wars". Competitors threw each other insects and rats, and then called the right place. But everything is very interesting here: if sanitary work is carried out honestly in a store or warehouse, then not a single pest will linger there.
Akinchenko emptied the decanter. Only now did I feel the intent gazes: the neighboring tables were looking at brochures and my interlocutor. “For thirteen years of work as a murderer, you learn to treat things simply,” Akinchenko later said.
A woman in a dressing gown was waiting for us on the porch of an elegant Novorizh mansion. Her name was Allah. Alla convulsively rubbed her temples:
It is in the bedroom and squeaks terribly, remove it, please ...
Konstantin walked around the house, closing the windows and doors. Then the cat Vasily was brought to the threshold. “The old-fashioned way, ideal for out-of-town orders,” Akinchenko said. For a couple of seconds, the cat froze at the ready, stretching out its ears. The woman looked incredulously at the half-meter Vasily. Suddenly he rushed. There was a hiss, claws scraping across the parquet. Half a minute later the Maine Coon was carrying a rodent in its teeth.
A scout rat, if you don’t catch it, there will be a whole flock here tomorrow,” Akinchenko said. - And so only in one or two months. So get ready. You can buy a semi-annual service card. Poison trap plus weekly check.
Frightened Alla bought two cards at once.
Guard! Save! The cockroaches are back!
How tired of these cockroaches! Here, no one has them. They have already become exotic. I have. Just like from that anecdote that Romain Rolland told through the mouth of Cola Breugnon. This is when God and the Archangel are flying over the earth, and a woman is sitting on the banks of the river and is bored. God tells the Archangel to throw a handful of lice at her so that she doesn't get bored. Here someone threw it to me from above, from below, but then they came to me, and that's it.
Where they came from is not clear. But they put questions before me: what to do, and who is to blame? The neighbors answered my second question. They say that they lived with my neighbor for a long time, and now they have found another bread place. Yes, most importantly, some say that this is because the environment in my apartment is good. Others, on the contrary, saw it as flaws in my order.
Well, I opened the Internet. God! It turns out that these creatures have been living on Earth for 350 million years. And that it is they who are the main masters of life here, and not us. We are aliens, but they are real earthlings. We periodically disappear from the face of the Earth, there are also a lot of hypotheses on this topic. One of them is that human civilization is already the eleventh. And archaeologists are surprised, digging up different layers, coming up with names for them. And what to invent if we, the eleventh, leave, but traces of us remain.
And what is interesting is that they really behave like owners. Also cunning. We, in our naivety, all think that we are only smart, and they, apparently, still have a collective mind. Judge for yourself, as soon as I was going to poison them, I bought poison for them, how they hid from me. The Internet also advises that it is necessary to feed them with food with biological additives, chips there, Chinese noodles, then they will simply die out in three years.
Three years, of course, is a very short period for world history, but for me it is a huge layer of my life. I began to consult with people living, not from the Internet. They say that if there are cell phones, they will go away. I have three. I posted them everywhere they go. Give them a fuck. They also said that computers are killing them. I have one computer, two laptops, one netbook. They don't care. I'm typing and they're crawling across the screen, mocking and teasing me.
They also said that the microwave oven would definitely kill them with its ultrawaves. OK. Bought a microwave. Fig. You also need to mix boric acid with egg yolk. They get drunk and become barren. How will they become. They will say thank you. And there is no boric acid in any pharmacy. I began to water them with sprays, abundantly so. There are no corpses to be seen, and the youngsters run around as if nothing had happened. You know, in people, too, young animals adapt quickly. Now I have one concern every day. I'll flood the whole apartment with poison, and run as soon as possible from the house, wherever my eyes look.
That's how you think about who's boss in the house. Me or them? They have already evicted me from the kitchen, because I pour them there more often. There are two refrigerators, a gas stove, they are all hiding somewhere. Well, I catch them with my hands, drain them into the sewer, and spread the smelly leaves for them. They say that even "Mashenka" is very effective. This is such a white crayon. Draw leaves for them and lay them out. They immediately fell in love with Masha. They run through the sheets and they wanted to spit on me.
They also say that they are delicious, similar to shrimp meat. The desire to try has not arisen yet. But others eat them. Somewhere out there, in the wild tribes. In general, they eat everything that moves. They live so close together, eat each other and are glad without memory, and here we are making a tragedy out of this. I also read about cockroach races somewhere, but they are specially fattened there and they arrange competitions. People do business with it. And sadness overcomes me. I go to bed with thoughts, what would they arrange tomorrow? I wake up with the same thoughts. And even my dreams are all with cockroaches. Everyone has their own cockroaches in their heads, but mine are real. According to Indian philosophy we don't exist at all. This is the Buddha sleeping in a lotus flower and seeing us in a dream, and when he wakes up, that's it, we'll probably disappear... And the cockroaches?
Someone advised posimonit. OK. At first I lied, asked them to leave my territory, because they settled illegally, they have no registration, I said that they would not leave, I would write a statement to the police against them. Then, on the Internet, she opened a "simoron" to expel cockroaches. It turned out that this technique is to attract money. It is necessary to yell loudly that I am a pregnant cockroach and throw some of my underwear on the chandelier. I think, yes, maybe, well, they, money, after all, is not superfluous either. My chandelier is very high, but I, like a basketball player, hit it. Now I have cockroaches running around, and an attribute of underwear hanging on the chandelier, but there is still no money, as there was no money. They are not cockroaches, they do not come by themselves ...
I remember the song from childhood, how my grandfather fought with cockroaches, no matter what he did, it was useless, then “... our grandfather spat angrily, and before lying down, he took it and turned the whole stove with dynamite. In the morning, the old man decided to clean up the garbage in the corner, and there: a cheerful company sits on a pebble and, singing songs, moves its mustache ... ”He decided to escape from them to the North Pole. He arrived, opens the suitcase, and there again the chorus: a cheerful company sits on the suitcase and, singing songs, moves its mustache.
I called a friend, she says she has the same story at work. The “earthlings” adapted, they only left for a while. It is not clear where they went, but why they didn’t stay there at all is a mystery. They also say that it is necessary to send them three floors with non-literary vocabulary, but do not laugh at the same time. Laugh, come back, think you're joking. Another anecdote from the past, when you poison cockroaches, relatives from all over the microdistrict will come to the wake, and may stay.
Here is such a trouble. Maybe you have something else to advise? Tomorrow, I think, I will boil water and scald them from an enema. I told them about it. If they have a collective mind, maybe they will run away from where they came from. I also think that if we are gaining some experience here on their Earth, then I don’t understand why I need this experience with cockroaches. I have already gone through this lesson, because this civilization of theirs is not the first in my life.
And then, if they are so tenacious that they even settle in nuclear reactors, then it doesn’t matter to them where to live. Let them live, why bother people? People have not always been, and they are already 350 million. Somehow they managed without us. And, it turns out that we seemed to have appeared here on purpose to serve all this menagerie. I am so big, and they are so small, but there are many of them ...
Nadezhda Leonova
It seems that the problem of cockroaches in Izhevsk apartments was already solved 10-15 years ago, but suddenly they appeared again. And not in dirty apartments, but in quite clean houses of respectable owners.
All because of the summer heat?
Experts say: this year in the capital of Udmurtia, just an invasion of cockroaches. This year, they have 40% more applications for baiting cockroaches.
For the whole of 2015, we processed 538 apartments, this year only in August and September there were 265 applications, - says the specialist of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Prevention Izhevsk" Irina. - Most likely, the reason for such dominance is in the hot summer. This year, nature has created simply ideal breeding conditions for cockroaches. And as for the funds ... our drugs cope with cockroaches. Perhaps the point is not that the cockroaches have become "stronger", but that when the townspeople try to get them out, they do not inspect all the cracks in which insects can hide. But cockroaches can do without food and water for a long time.
Among the clients of exterminators, there are even residents of quite prestigious houses.
This is a mass phenomenon, you can go into any house and find an apartment with cockroaches there. And I'm not talking about "unfavorable" apartments, but about ordinary, clean ones. It is difficult to say what this is connected with, - Alexander, a specialist of Byt-Service LLC, adds.
“There were no cockroaches for 15 years”
Olga from the village of Mashinostroiteley brought out all the cockroaches 15 years ago, when she moved into the apartment. But then the long-forgotten attack returned to her. Olga decided to fight on her own.
Cockroaches appeared about two months ago, when the first cold came. And since September, every evening, going into the kitchen and turning on the light, I saw several large cockroaches and up to a dozen of their cubs! This is a real nightmare, - says Olga.
Olga does not understand where they came from and how to deal with them.
I thought that they were crawling from the street, along the walls of the house. Well, I can't have that many! I regularly clean the apartment, clean everything, wash the dishes right away, the sink is always clean, the stove too. I'm talking about rooms in general! When it got colder, we closed the windows, but I still see cockroaches. One question - how and where?! the woman is surprised.
Olga tried crayons, sprays, and gels - the effect is temporary.
I poured the gel into the cracks where the cockroaches hide. Now I almost don’t see the big ones, and if they get out, it’s like “drunk”. Smaller ones, but still there. I don't know what to do! Poison is not an option, I'm afraid that pets will get poisoned, - Olga complains.
Whole house problem
Residents of house No. 196 on Udmurtskaya Street did not exchange for trifles. They immediately decided that it was useless to poison in individual apartments and staged a massive persecution of nasty insects.
My husband and I moved into this apartment three years ago, - says Veronica from Izhevsk. - Nobody lived in it, so there were cockroaches, but we took them out at a time and did not see them again. Until this fall. What have I not tried! But any means is enough for a week and a half, and then they crawl with renewed vigor. The husband went to the neighbors, because you need to poison the entire "riser" at once. Residents have already applied to our management company to open the basement, where, in their opinion, there is a “hotbed” of cockroaches, and called exterminators. Now, according to neighbors, a wave of migration of these insects. So we are still in the process of struggle, but we decided to do it centrally - the problem is common!
What to do?
If insects appeared in your apartment, it is really useless to solve the problem alone only in your apartment. First, the cockroaches will run to the neighbors, and then they will return to you again. The most reliable way is to carry out pest control of the entire house at once. Although this is quite expensive and troublesome (you need to agree with all the neighbors), in fact, this is the only way to get rid of cockroaches for longer than a month.
We are waiting for the exterminator
1. Cockroaches do not die immediately: you will have to see the corpses of insects for at least another two months;
2. Places treated by a specialist cannot be washed for two weeks. This also applies to gender. Therefore, the exterminator can stock up on a pair of shoe covers;
3. Get ready to change your life a little: you will have to remove everything that comes into contact with the body from the treated room: toothbrushes, washcloths, cotton pads and sticks, as well as dishes and cutlery;
4. By the way, if you have pets - check if chemicals are dangerous for them: some companies promise treatment that is safe for all family members, including four-legged ones.
By the way!
Even if you don’t have a crumb in your apartment, then you won’t spoil the life of cockroaches. Even newspapers can serve as food for them. But without water, they cannot live longer than a week, so make sure that the taps do not flow in the apartment and there are no puddles anywhere.
As cold-blooded creatures, cockroaches are also afraid of the cold.
It seems that Amur residents who disappeared from the apartments are returning from distant wanderings, as well as pets of Barnaul. Those who were thrown at with slippers and poisoned with chemical Chinese pencils. Those that have been missing somewhere for several years ...
- Ugh! Yesterday at home I saw a cockroach crawling on a cabinet with dishes. And it became so disgusting ... Really returned back? After so many years of absence of the mustaches, I have already forgotten what they look like, - our regular reader told the "City on the Amur". Due to the piquancy of the topic, not every housewife admits that red-haired creatures live in her house. However, as it turned out, this issue again becomes topical for many.
Apocalypse
Maybe the advent of the Prussians happened because they suddenly pushed back the end of the world? And, apparently, the rumor about the new Mayan calendars, according to which the end of the world is pushed back, was not only among people. And there is no point in running away and hiding for insects at the moment. Here are cockroaches for joy and crawled out of their secluded cracks.
According to Vanga's prophecy, the insects were the first to feel the approach of the Apocalypse. (In addition to cockroaches, bees from the USA and Europe disappeared somewhere.)
The population has declined
Cockroach Speculation is speculation ... Well, what do entomologists think about the return of the Prussians? Why did these insects return after years of absence? - we asked the Annunciation scientist, candidate of biological sciences Dina Rogatnykh.
- In fact, they never disappeared.. Just in connection with the advent ten years ago of a large number of new chemical and biological preparations for cockroaches, the population has noticeably decreased.
- What factors contributed to the "return"?
- Cockroaches - one of the most adaptable creatures to environmental factors - over time simply adapted to poisons, and now their numbers are recovering. The only chemical substance that insects have not been able to get used to in the process of evolution is boric acid.
- Will the cockroach infestation be as massive as before? When it was scary to spend the night in hospitals: insects crawled everywhere. I had to sleep with cotton swabs in my ears. Did the walls of student dormitories literally “move”?
- I think no. Firstly, the chemical industry does not stand still and new poisons and other household chemicals are constantly being created, and secondly, people are increasingly using synthetic building materials that the cockroach does not eat.
- Is it humane to kill cockroaches with slippers and chemicals?
- It is difficult to talk about some kind of humanity, planning a murder. In addition, you can hardly kill a cockroach just with a slipper. For example, he can live for several days without a head. It's just that the nervous system of insects is arranged in such a way that the head does not play the most important role. When it is lost, the body is controlled by nerve ganglia, that is, nodes. After some time, the insect, of course, will die, and not so much from the inability to eat, but from dehydration. For a long time without water cockroach to be can not.
- Such factors of the disappearance of the Prussians as the absence of the ozone layer, the Svobodny cosmodrome, mobile communications, and the Internet are listed. What do you think is real, and what is far-fetched?
- It is believed that high-frequency mobile communications have an effect on cockroaches. Everything else is nothing more than myths.
cockroach heart
G they will talk about some universal benefit of cockroaches ...
There are no useless creatures in nature. In fact, the species of cockroaches that live with humans recycle our garbage. Them 
the digestive system contains the so-called symbiotic Blattabacterium bacteria, thanks to which an ordinary Prussian can digest almost everything: any food leftovers, paper, rags, etc.
To some extent, cockroaches save us from other unpleasant insects - bedbugs and moths, destroying their eggs with pleasure.
Well, recently, for medicine, natural antibiotics contained in the hemolymph (one might say, blood) of cockroaches are of interest. Nine such substances are now known. It has been experimentally proven that they successfully destroy E. coli. It is quite possible that after some time, thanks to the Prussians, new effective medicines will appear.
The principle of the cockroach heart (imagine - an insect has it!) served as a prototype for creating an artificial human heart. It is currently being developed in India. The heart of a cockroach has many chambers: if one fails, the remaining ones take over its function. Perhaps the invention, which has already been tested on frogs, will someday save human lives, says Dina Rogatnykh.
History
The fossilized remains of representatives of the order of cockroach paleontologists have already been found in the upper deposits of the Carboniferous period, which means that the mustachioed live on earth for more than 300 million years. And they saw how dinosaurs appeared and disappeared, while they themselves survived.
The big black cockroach lives everywhere except perhaps Antarctica. In Europe, he showed up more than three hundred years ago.
As for the appearance of the red cockroach (Blattella germanica), it is associated with the Russo-Prussian war in the middle of the 18th century. There is an opinion that Russian soldiers returning to their homeland in 1762-1763 after the Seven Years' War from Germany brought cockroaches in coat collars and knapsacks. Therefore, insects were called "Prussians". In western Germany they are called "Frenchmen", in eastern Germany - "Russians". The opinions of scientists about the place of origin of insects differ: for some it is Africa, for others it is South Asia.
Once upon a time, people revered cockroaches (although, to be honest, it's hard to believe!). It was believed that if there are any in the house - expect profit and wealth. They were even used as a medicine - they were added to vodka, which was called “cockroach”.
A long time ago, among the Tatars, “tarkhans” were called a privileged layer of society, exempted from paying taxes for special merits. And in Russia, hordes of mustachioed parasites began to be called that. It's just that the word "tarkhan" was transformed into "cockroach".
running
Anyone who has ever tried to catch a cockroach knows that this is not an easy task. What is the cockroach secret? Firstly, the cockroach has small hairs on its abdomen on both sides, with the help of which the insect catches the slightest movement of air, and also determines from which side to wait for the enemy to attack. Secondly, the cockroach's nervous system is simply amazing: it only takes a hundredth of a second to assess the situation and run away!
Geoffrey Kamhi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his colleagues filmed insects with a high-speed movie camera. And it turned out that cockroaches can move at a speed of one meter per second and at the same time change direction up to 25 times per second. “We don’t know of any other animals capable of coordinating the direction of movement like that,” Kamhi said. - If cockroaches were not such unwanted guests in the house, they would, no doubt, be quite deservedly admired.
No wonder cockroach races were very popular in Russia before the revolution. They began with Moscow taverns. Mostly black insects participated in the competition. Half of Moscow came to cheer for the cockroach, nicknamed Yegor, in one of the taverns. The running track is no more than one and a half meters long, the stakes are considerable. There are cases when on such a totalizator lost fortunes.
astronauts
A few years ago, students of the Burdenko Voronezh Medical Academy caught 54 cockroaches in city hospitals. And the Prussians went into space on the Photon-M-3 biosatellite. Reds were chosen for their light weight and size, as well as their ability to live long without food.
The result of the experiment shocked scientists. They have grown to gigantic proportions. And in addition to this, instead of one offspring expected during this period, they brought as many as three.
Museum
In the US state of Texas, the owner of a pest control shop, Michael Bodan, has created an unusual museum that displays dozens of species of cockroaches, donated from different people.
Passionate lover of cockroaches - he took care of the posthumous fate of his "crumbs". He places dried cockroach mummies in different interiors, equips houses, cradles for them, makes beach hammocks, umbrellas, deck chairs ... Visitors can admire Prussian surfers, Prussian musicians and even the “Statue of Cockroach Liberty”.
Is it possible to cause admiration for the sight of dead cockroaches? It turned out, as much as possible! Especially if you dress them up in suits. So the audience is invariably delighted with the sexy cockroach "Marilyn Monroe" and touched by the mustachioed "Elvis Presley" in a white tailcoat with rhinestones.
One of the exhibits was created by an 85-year-old woman who dressed an insect in a mink coat and placed it behind a tiny piano. The composition "Liberouty" is named after his idol, the famous American pianist.
Facts about cockroaches
The international name of the cockroach - "cucaracha" - is of Spanish origin, and migrated to English in the early 17th century.
More than 4 thousand species of cockroaches live on the planet. Almost all of them live in the wild, 80% in tropical forests.
According to various sources, there are several largest cockroaches in the world. Some call the Colombian female Kwgaloblatta longipennis, which reaches a length of 9.7 cm, a width of 4.5 cm. Others call it a winged Cuban cockroach up to 10 centimeters long. Still others are the Australian rhinoceros cockroach (Macropanesthia rhinoceros), which is over 9 cm long and weighs about 33.5 grams. The inhabitant of our apartments is much smaller: Prusak - from 10 to 13 mm long.
The Madagascar cockroach, while moving, hisses quite loudly, making his way and, as it were, shouting: “Make my way, my way!”. Filmmakers have discovered this and successfully use the cockroach's voices to voice special episodes.
Much is said about the fact that only cockroaches will survive after a nuclear explosion. But these conversations have no definite scientific confirmation. Although there are studies confirming the resistance of cockroaches to radiation. A human can withstand 500 rads (units of exposure to radiation), but a cockroach can withstand 6400 rads!