Cockroaches...

They've got me puzzled

[edit_g]

Now I don't often get cockroaches in the house, but sometimes (around once a month) I find one. I hunt them down ruthlessly, usually with some sort of insect spray.

Usually I spray them, leave to simmer for 30 minutes, and then go looking for the body. Everytime I find them, they're upside down. Never found one right side up. This also happens with cockroaches which I haven't killed (i.e. I find them dead) -- this is where my issue lies.

Do cockroaches, in a supreme feat of effort, at the very moment of their deaths, use their last strength to flip themselves over?

[Syzygy]

Hmm, you had me googling this through curiosity. And of the many answers found...

[bio.umass.edu ]

And this lovely, ancient page from 1999...

[madsci.org ]

In summary: pesticides can cause them to have spasms which can make them involuntarily flip on their backs, where they stay... until the last...

How cruel!

;-)

Syzygy

[edit_g]

Thanks for that! :)

I had considered the spams - but that still doesn't explain why unsprayed roaches end up on their backs. By the sounds of those two links it sounds as if they have trouble righting themselves if they accidentally end up on their backs - so that takes care of that as well.

So if the cockroaches ever do decide to try to take over the world, all we need to do is flip them over. :D

[httpwebwitch]

this flipping cockroach study might shed light on a personal quandry: why so many mornings I wake up lying on my bathroom floor with muddy knees, bloody knuckles, a wicked hangover and no memory of the previous evening.

except the dreamlike recollection of dancing around a fire and something involving a goat