German Cockroaches
German Cockroaches Are Live And Well In America
Yet another roach that is graced with wings but chooses not to use them, German cockroaches are relatively small and currently hiding in a crack near you. If you are searching for a common household pest who can emit a foul odor, eat the glue off of your furniture, burrow beneath your wall paper, contaminate your food, make your children ill, and lead you to acute asthma attacks, this is the roach for you! And you needn’t travel to Germany to find him, as his American debut some 100 years ago was an immensely successful one, and he is flourishing across the greater majority of the North American continent. Maybe you can bring him home from the grocery store, as so many others have done. You shouldn’t have to put much effort toward raising German cockroaches, just turn around for a split second and there they’ll be.
German cockroaches live for a maximum of 6 ½ months, the male of the species enduring slightly less time. What’s different about the mating and hatching habits of the German cockroach? She will breed at least 6 times, as often as 8 times, during her short adult life. Each egg sack will contain up to 48 fertilized eggs, and she carries the sack off eggs beneath her abdomen until a few hours before they are ready to hatch. At this point, she deposit’s the sack into a dark, cool place where they will have the shelter and nutrition that they will need to survive the larvae stage.
The German cockroach is almost bionic in its survival techniques. As a species, they have recently shown resistance to the pesticides and chemicals commonly used to control infestation. Scientists were forced to delve into the inherent and genetic traits of these roaches and figure out why. It turns out that any survivors, of which there are usually at least two, of a chemical or pesticide attack will automatically develop immunity to that type and concentration of poisoning. And it doesn’t end there, as German cockroaches pass this new resistance on to their offspring instantaneously. Immunity to certain elements can be passed on through one generation…which explains the roach’s survival through these many millenniums of structural and environmental hazards.
It is of the utmost importance that you do not use a higher concentration or amount of the pesticide which has been resisted. The reason for this is simple: once resistance has been developed, we will run out of control techniques, and German cockroaches will basically rule the roost. If we allow the infestation issues to reach a point where the chemicals that we have to use could kill us as well, then all is lost in the fight against infestation.