Some facts about that icky creature we call the "cockroach"

quote:

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Cockroaches have inhabited the earth for more than 250 million years.
The average roach-infested household contains more than 20,000 roaches.
Roaches can live up to 20 days without food and 14 days without water.
They can flatten their bodies and crawl through a crack thinner than a dime.
They'll eat anything -- food, leather, hair, and the glue in book bindings.
They can live off the toothpaste residue in your toothbrush.
They can survive radiation up to 12 time greater than humans.
Roaches have been implicated in the spread of tuberculosis, leprosy, cholera,
dysentery and typhoid.
Roaches are startled by the smallest of air movements and can run for cover in less
than .05 seconds.
There are over 3,000 kinds of cockroaches, including the devastating Asian Roach,
which has migrated to this country.
They are cannibals and take a particular liking to each others' excrement.
The actor Nicolas Cage ate a cockroach in the movie Vampire's Kiss, just for the
shock value.
In extreme cases roaches will feed off people.
Cockroaches can transmit a wide variety of diseases and cause common allergic
reactions previously thought to be caused by dust.

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And, a picture - for those of you in places where you don't have to deal with these things (you lucky people): http://ianrwww.unl.edu/ianr/pat/comproa.jpg

Linda, That was truly gross..LOL..:P
That is more info than I really wanted to know..hehe

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Pinhead

Say,Linda, ever hear of archy the cockroach? He was created by journalist-humorist Don Marquis in his column of the New York Sun. Teamed with mehitabel, the alley cat, archy commented on life in post-ww1 America. He couldn't use the capital key on the typewriter so that's why all his writing is in lower key. The archy series is as funny today as when it was first published and well worth reading. tjoeb};>

Although associated with filth, cockroaches are fastidiously clean and groom themselves continually. (Zoology 310)

A cockroach can live for up to nine days without its head,before it starves to death.(Presumably,it can still mate in this state,but does it enjoy it?)

was the toothpaste reference really necessary?
gag me with a forklift!
=)

Eeeeeugh! I am not sure if we get them here but I once bought a pack of tumblers and there was a dead one in it, double eeeeeugh!

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From over the pond....

I heard on TV the other evening that cockroaches can feel pain ...... poor little things

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From over the pond....

Sue, gooooood! (Linda1 has evil grin on her face)

That was just about the attitude of the people on the TV show - "Ah what a shame, bomp!"

I don't like anything that is like a beetle so I don't like them ... cockroaches. Don't like earwigs either, eeeewwww!!

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From over the pond....