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At the onset of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed, “All that we have to fear is fear itself.”
When I consider the word fear, the Great Depression is light-years from cockroaches. In fact, I recently wrote a personal testimonial titled “Say Hello to Phil.”
I decided the time had come to overcome my lifelong angsts over these evil creatures by capturing and henceforth befriending Phil, in hopes that you would seriously consider following my advice. There is no question that you and every other human being on earth shares the same fear, other than the Banshee tribe of Africa that eats their heads for ritual purposes.
So back to Phil. Little did I know that Phil was a female, leading up to this second edition of my roach narrative titled “Say Hello to Philomena.” It began recently when I turned on the lights in formerly Phil’s bedroom and to my amazement, noticing dozens of baby roaches scurrying around in the cage. I then remembered that roaches have a propensity to flatten themselves into the size of a graham cracker to effortlessly slide into and out of windows, doors and, of course, cages. Clearly, a male roach had found its way into my roach cage to have coitus with Philomena. Bingo, a profusion of brand new baby roaches.
So, for those of you who are thinking about overcoming this fear of roaches and would prefer not to have a glut of little ones, here is what you need to know about bug gender.
Like many insects, roaches are sexually dimorphic, meaning they have very distinct body structures. This makes sexing your future pet roach super easy.
The first feature you may notice in males is the obvious protruding horns on the pronotum just behind their
heads. Females have these horns as well, but they are much less defined. Males also have thicker antennae than females. These first two methods of identification work best when roaches reach adulthood – approximately one month.
The simplest and most foolproof means of distinguishing males and females is to look at the roach’s underside towards the bottom. Males have a series of three plates at the tail end of their abdomens, while females have just one large segment.
With this exact knowledge and close inspection, you can determine not just cockroach species but cockroach gender. In short, depending on the species, roaches can display instantly recognizable gender differences, thus providing you with a well- informed choice.
Back to my over-populated roach dilemma. My initial impulse was to wipe them out with a robust dose of Raid. But then my entrepreneurial persona kicked in. Why not consider creating a business for those millions of humans out there who instantaneously experience riga mortis when confronted with a cockroach.
After considerable research and soul-searching, I decided to open an online retail store named “La Cocka Roacha Emporium.” In addition to an instruction manual to learn how to capture and house your pet roach, I assembled an assortment of items to purchase online.
However the emporium no longer is in business.
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