Well, hello and welcome to InverteCast, the podcast where we intentionally talk about
bugs. I am Leah from Torrence Leah and of course you know my co-host Simon from the
Mantis Garden. Hello Simon. Hello chaps. Okay, so today our topic is cockroaches. So hopefully
we can dispel a few myths about them and maybe a little... they're one of the least
liked insect I think in the Inverte world. What do you think? Absolutely. Yeah, I think
we don't suffer with them over here like a lot of countries do because we're not a tropical
country, we're really intemperate. But I've heard down south that you can get them here
and there now and again but very rarely have them here. But as you know my wife's from
Africa and also Portugal and she's always complaining when she sees my cockroaches
she's like oh my god they're disgusting. So she hates them with a passion. To me they're
not something I've ever really seen in the wild. In fact I've never seen a wild cockroach
in the UK. Wow you're lucky. So I spent two years in Okinawa and cockroaches were massive
and they were everywhere. So yeah I've definitely seen my fair share of cockroaches. Also California
there's plenty of cockroaches. Florida they're all over the place. So I mean they're pretty
common especially the pests. There are pest species that live here in the states and everything
so we're going to talk about it. We're going to get into it because there are more to cockroaches
than just you know getting into your food cabinets and all that stuff. So we'll get
into some interesting facts. Here in the states actually I believe it's like 30 something
percent of people actually develop allergies to cockroaches from their castings and whatnot
and especially the pest species. So that's an interesting thing there but they also like
they can leave kind of a bad odor and you know but these guys, cockroaches are actually
really really fascinating because of what they do kind of how they survive all that
stuff so let's get into it. So cockroaches are actually in the order of Blatodea and
there are 4600 species worldwide. Most of them live in you know like tropical and kind
of warm moisture bound kind of areas in the wild. Mild climates but you can pretty much
find a cockroach anywhere. And so they are also among the most primitive living winged
insects. So they're the oldest recorded fossil I believe was 320 million years old so these
guys have predated us. They've predated pretty much almost anything on earth at this moment
except maybe crocodiles. You know what I mean? So the word cockroach is actually a corruption
of the Spanish word cucaracha. So there you go. Thanks, thanks. I just had to brilliant.
I've got that song in my head now. Like cucaracha. I mean you can hear it around here. They
dance they dance to it too. They put the sombrero down on the ground and then they dance around
the sombrero. Yeah it's good. It's fun times. So another species, other species that are
also in the bladidae order is termites. So the closest like relative to cockroaches is
going to be a termite which is really kind of interesting. I didn't know that so that
was a fun little fact for me. And so these guys they have compound eyes and they have
well developed sight so when you see a cockroach it sees you too. And so the cave dwelling
species are basically the only ones that don't have very good eyesight. And I know you said
you had some cave. Yes you carry on talking because you know for anybody who's watching
on YouTube I'll grapple now. You'll be able to see it. If we get yeah I mean I know they're
a little bit. So they typically have a flat oval shaped body and they're usually brown
or black in color but there are some species that are green and others that feature like
really distinct pretty markings. Oh yeah a little cave. Look at that. They're not little.
Trust me they're not little. Have you seen my hand there? No that's cool. They're quite
large. Yeah absolutely. So for everybody watching and everyone listening. That's a quick little
guy. Wow. Yeah he is. They're quick. I'm gonna put it back now because really. Yeah right. So the cave dwelling species are really cool. They actually rely really heavily on their antennae which is also how they smell and like here and they can feel vibrations through those antennae. So that's pretty interesting. So males have two pairs of wings and females don't have
wings at all or they have vestigial wings or useless wings essentially. All species have a mutualistic bacterium that lives within the insects fat cells and is thought to help regulate purine metabolism and helps them to survive in nitrogen rich environment or nitrogen rich environments or poor diets.
And all cockroaches are active at night. So they're nocturnal. That's why you know if you're out scrounging in your kitchen in the middle of the night looking for some food and you happen to turn the light on and a bunch of cockroaches scatter that's why they prefer the dark. That sounds horrifying. Yeah right. I've seen it happen. It's yeah it's a thing.
I have seen what big roaches abroad. As you know I've worked in Asia and Southeast Asia. Right. I've at least and whatnot and I've seen like roaches but nothing to that extent where they're scattering on that you know. It's exciting for me if I see something like that. Oh yeah no I mean.
I've seen them like that in California when I lived in California. I was in San Diego. Thankfully not in my home but again see you can hear the detest in my what I'm saying about cockroaches because they are I mean they do come with that stigma that they're you know dirty creatures and their own.
They carry diseases and stuff like that which is mostly true especially if the pest species that we consider pests like the I believe they're called the American brown cockroach. I have it in here I have it in my notes and so those guys they're they're you know seen as a pest and you know they're very famous insect.
That's one on our list. See what. That's one on our list. The ones we've got over here seems to be from you. Oh yeah I believe it. I believe it. For sure. The German cockroach that seems to be you know from somewhere else and not ours so to speak.
Anyway sorry carry on. No you're good. I appreciate it. Okay so pest species often damage more than they consume more than they consume or like replace and they often emit a bad odor. Their diet includes both plant and animal products food paper clothing books dead insects and especially bed bugs.
So here we go. We're dispelling a quick little myth. I don't think that cockroaches are quite as detested as much as bed bugs are so if you do have a cockroach around guess what he wants to eat the bed bugs.
So there is a benefit to having cockroaches. But pest species are known to spread dysentery E. Coli Salmonella and other types of food poisoning like diseases.
The vast majority of roaches are actually important members of their ecosystems. So the couple of pest species that you know most people think are around and whatnot like yeah okay their pests and whatnot and they do carry some diseases but they do also have some some serious benefits.
They play a key role in food webs and nutrient cycling. So many frogs lizards birds and small mammals rely on cockroaches as a food source.
So again everything has a purpose. Now I'll get into kind of the families of cockroaches. So we got the plata plata blada which contains pretty much most common household roaches like the American cockroach, which is the para plant a Americana.
They're actually native to Africa and the mid east, which is really interesting so they're not actually American at all. They were hitchhikers at one point and that's how they got here.
And that's again that's something that is really really common with cockroaches. They are so incredibly resilient that you know they can survive for a long time just on a ship somewhere and you know and then they find themselves in a totally different climate but they're resilient.
They survive so there's a lot of like spiritual and symbolistic meaning behind that that they are resilient. They're durable. They prevail.
So if you know if you happen to be dreaming about a cockroach that's that's probably why is because it's telling you to be resilient to be persistent.
Continue, continue on move forward you know. Or you've just fed like 10 boxes of them. Yeah right. I sometimes do about cockroaches I think that's more likely the reason.
Yeah, I believe it because they have like 11 species here. Oh wow. So yeah, I think it's definitely that's the reason why.
Yeah, I believe it. I mean they like I said they're they're very durable. You know they're survivors of the insect world.
So another cool fact about them is they did find that cockroaches actually and this is true for most species are they can withstand some exposure to radiation.
So not a ton but they can they can definitely like survive exposure to radiation number one. Yeah, they do not survive a nuclear bomb.
No, they won't survive that. They'll survive you know parts of the radius.
The fallout radiation that can survive. Yeah, but yeah, the common myth is it the only thing that will survive if we have a nuclear war with the cockroaches and that's just rubbish.
Yeah, it's not entirely true.
But it's pretty interesting that they can survive radiation because I don't I don't think there are many other insects species that can.
So that's that's kind of a fascinating thing.
Okay, so then we've also got the Oriental cockroach and that's that's the one of it and I'm sorry for using Oriental I know that's really not the best word for that but
the scientific name for these guys is Blada orientalis, which is great because they're considered one of the most.
Yeah, that's right. So Oriental is I know right. I love the scientific words.
But they're considered one of the most notorious pests. So and I will say that this. Okay, so I have a funny story.
While I was in Okinawa, I was up in the middle of the night. I think I was doing something in my closet.
Honestly, I think I was up very early in the morning getting ready for work and I was in my closet, you know, getting getting my camos and getting my boots and everything ready.
Right. And I was kind of crouched and then I leaned I leaned forward and then when I came back, there was something under my heel and I crushed it and I thought it was a grape.
Well, when I turned the light on, it was a big ol' roach. So I legit stepped on a cockroach with my bare feet.
It was not the most fun experience. It was really kind of you. It was just you.
The explode don't they? Some roach that's so soft bodied when you grab them, especially grabbing with tongs or tweezers.
Yeah, explode out of the abdomen. It's disgusting. Yeah. And that's literally that's literally what happened. It was.
And then it fell off. Yeah, it was awful.
I've had I give them the mantis. I don't like pointing out you can't see if I've got mantis here next to me. I like I've given roaches before they've eaten the entire head and halfway down the body.
So these are like four legs left and they drop them by accident and it's run off. It's literally with no head and no no problem to the front of the body.
Yeah, and it's just running around in circles like back end of it just running around in circles, which obviously the captioning.
Yeah, that's, you know, amazing. Now, you know, because of the physiology and the way that bodies design.
I think the insect body is designed better than the human body.
I think so too. Honestly, it really is. If you look deep into it, it really is. I mean, especially like the way the breeze, the oxygen to each organ.
It's a much more sensible organization of it. And that's probably why a lot of them haven't changed.
Yeah, I think so too. We are evolving. We have changing.
They haven't changed. Like not much. They haven't changed.
Yeah, so many years like 300 million years is still the same thing. Yeah, they think, hey, I'm perfect.
Well, they're efficient. I mean, their bodies work exactly how they're supposed to.
They do exactly what they're meant to do and why change it if it's not broken, right?
Yeah, and you know, they can't get because of the way the body works.
Yeah.
We're susceptible to so many other things disease, bacteria, and all sorts of things because of the way our body works. So I want to come back as an insect.
Yeah.
Cool.
That looks a long time though. Not one of them.
Yeah, right.
Not a mayfly or anything.
Okay, so the next family that I have on my list here is the Bidobide, which is the German cockroach or the one that we consider a pest cockroach here in the States.
And obviously they're in the UK as well. They are the platilla Germanica.
These scientific words, sorry. They're often carried into homes in like grocery bags or boxes.
So yeah, again, that hitchhiker aspect of them. We also have the brown banded cockroach or the cepillum longi palpa.
And they resemble the German cockroach quite a bit, but they are a little bit smaller.
So there's that. And then so now I'm going to get into the giant cockroaches.
So the Blairidae, yeah, giant cockroaches. They're a large family of large cockroaches.
The most famous is the Madagascar hissing cockroach, which is the gramphodomide portentosa.
And I have, I actually have, let me see here. Hopefully I don't like perturb it too much, but I have little hissing cockroaches right here to show everybody.
Oh, you got one.
Yay. Don't hiss at me yet. I want you to hiss on.
Oh, did you hear that?
Okay.
Okay, I want them to hiss on the microphone. Oh, goodness.
Okay. Can you hear that?
Yeah.
There it is.
So that is this guy. This guy right here. This is a male. And you can tell that he's a male because he has these two little horn looking deals on the top of his head.
So, but this is a Madagascar hissing cockroach.
This is beautiful. And the hissing noise that they make is actually produced by their antenna by their, by these little deals right here, which is really interesting.
So they're not actually, or like they, as far as I know, it's, it's like a, it's a, they push air through something and then it vibrates and it makes that noise.
So there's a little Madagascar hissing cockroach for you.
Don't fall, buddy. I'm holding you.
Yeah.
As a female.
Yeah, there you go. And the females have a flat, have a more flat rounded kind of head. But as you can see, these guys, they definitely fit, you know, fit the description of what a cockroach looks like.
They have that round oval body. They're flat, you know, they're compact, little tiny eyes.
And they have six legs. These guys have really like kind of thorny hairy legs, which I actually really like about them. I think they're really kind of cute.
I know it sounds weird.
The cave roach.
No, I don't have any cave roaches. But you can see his little head.
Right here.
The cave roach earlier actually cut me.
What?
With its, with its, the spines on its legs, it cut me on the, the,
Yeah. And I think they already swelled up there.
Oh my goodness, you poor thing.
It's a saying like, be careful if you pick up the cave.
They do have sharp back legs that got really like hooks on.
So, and that, well, and that helps them climb around things, doesn't it? It helps them to like really grip their surroundings really.
It's so grippy. It's so grippy. It's okay, but a couple of them just run off, but they're okay.
But because I held it in the middle, it kicked.
So, you know, so be careful. Don't grab them. Just let them call until you're like most after a pot actually.
Yeah, absolutely.
That was my own fault. So I can't go into the road.
Let's see. Yeah, never blame the roach. I never blame.
So I've got a couple of them here. Check them out. They're just kind of chilling, chilling on the car ground here.
They're really cute. Let me see. I can probably make them.
Yep.
That's not fair. You can hear yours better than mine. I have my microphone and I just stroked it and it was hissing.
I couldn't hear it. So.
I don't like to do it to them too much because after a while they, they lose their hissing ability.
I mean, they regain it of course in time, but like they're only good for a couple of hisses.
So.
I think just, you see it. I don't think you're just annoying.
Yeah, right. You probably are. It's just an annoyance to them, you know.
But these guys, you know, and I found with, with, especially with the hissing cockroaches and like most of other species that aren't like household pests.
They're actually really clean animals. They're not gross at all.
Like, you know, they're harmless mostly. Like they, they really don't bite or anything.
It's, it's, you know, they're, they're not horrible creatures. They're really kind of cool.
There is one, there is one that is nasty and it does bite.
Ooh.
Which is the lobster roach.
Lobster roach.
Oh man.
I missed that one in my research. How sad.
Well, one sec.
Oh sweet. I think Simon has a cool lobster roach to show us. And so I'm excited.
I have a fairly, no, quite small.
Really?
So you.
How funny. I thought, you know, when you said lobster roach, I thought it was going to be large.
For everybody listening.
But I mean, it's a, it's a female. So this is actually small.
I should suppose when I grab.
Yeah. It's only about a, what, like an inch.
Now, if you give this to a mantis or a tarantula, there's a good chance it'll bite back.
Wow.
In a really bad way. So I, I try to avoid using these.
Yeah.
Rectile feeders, I would say.
Not recommended for feeders.
Evil.
They are evil. Okay.
And I've got about a thousand of them in this box next to me.
So nice.
But as you can see, I mean my hand that I had the roach in, like it's clean.
So, you know, there's no grossness from these guys.
And I really like keeping hissing roaches as pets.
I want to get some of those cute, those really pretty emerald.
There's some emerald roaches that are really pretty and domino roaches.
Okay. So we'll get into that.
So, so as I said, the most famous of the giant cockroaches is the Madagascar hissing cockroach.
But they reach, you know, two to three inches long, which obviously you guys could see that for those who were listening couldn't really see that.
But yeah, they're quite a large species and they have a kind of a pretty, like they go from black to like brown and then they lighten up all the way down their body until they're like an orange color.
And they're kind of cool.
I think they're really cool.
And then you got the emerald cockroach, which is the Cordybarum Magnifica.
And then we've got giant burrowing roaches, the Macropanacea rhinoceros.
Ooh, what's that one?
That's a domino.
Ah, cool.
Yes, domino roaches.
So if you guys can't see, Simon is holding up a little domino cockroach.
And these guys are really cool because they're round and they are mostly black, but then they've got little white markings on their outer shell.
That look like dominoes.
They're quite fast when they want to be, but they'll generally sit in your hands like that one.
Sure.
They're pretty docile.
That's cool.
They're a bit of a strange one as far as roaches are concerned.
Keeping them.
Yeah, they're really interesting.
Most people do like to keep them as pets.
I wouldn't feed them.
They're too cute.
Yeah.
There's only lobsters and red runners that I feed to the mantis because the rest of them are too cute.
Right.
Yeah.
So the giant burrowing roach is actually from Australia.
And it's one of the heaviest species on Earth.
It weighs about 30 grams.
So an ounce.
Which doesn't sound like a lot to us, but when it comes to the insect world, one ounce, that's pretty heavy.
And of course, it's Australia, so everything is bigger and scarier and more venomous.
Well, as a comparison, can you see this?
Oh, and he can't, can you?
Oh, hey, there he is.
That's quite a big mantis.
Yeah.
And that weighs approximately one gram.
Wow.
So, you know, can imagine how big your cockroach is at 30 grams.
Right.
Yeah.
One.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Okay.
So now we have a 40 genera of sand cockroaches, which is the Corrididae family.
They are, if you've ever seen the question mark cockroach, they belong in this family.
So, they're Oleg Reydani.
Sorry, I am butchering these words.
The Domino Roach that we just saw, they are also part of this family.
They live in the sand.
So I'm believing, I believe these are desert dwelling roachers.
So these guys you will find in the deserts throughout the world.
One that is really interesting that I was really happy to find was there's a, it's specifically called the desert cockroach or the archivega in Vestigada.
And they live in the Colorado sand dunes in Southern California.
So these guys are only found in the sand dunes of Colorado.
And if you, so if you know anything about Colorado, we have a very kind of tight little pocket of sand dunes that is right on the other side of the Monte Cristo mountains or like the San Jose Valley.
And they are, it's really interesting because when you think of Colorado, everybody thinks of big tall mountains and, you know, winter and snow and evergreen trees and everything like that.
But yeah, we do have sand dunes and we also have the tallest sand dune in the entire nation right here in Colorado.
So it's no wonder that there are desert cockroaches that live in those sand dunes and they're native.
And that's that.
I thought that was just a really cool, really cool little topic there because I'm from Colorado.
What do you got Simon?
What do you got?
I believe it's in the same family. I'm not going to swear to it, right? I believe it's in the same family as the question mark roach.
Cool.
If you'll stay still, these are an extremely pretty roach. This is a headlight roach.
Oh, a headlight roach.
Very, very pretty. Yellow and black stripes and you've got the orange, orange stuff there.
Oh, yeah. Okay. They are pretty.
They really are pretty.
I'm sorry, but it's hard for me to get him in camera because he's a bit quick.
Yeah, he's just running.
Look at that.
How cool.
He stopped. There you go.
Yeah.
Trying to get him closer.
Yeah, looks great. Looks great.
He's hanging off of your hand.
So that's pretty awesome. So yeah, you got some sand cockroaches.
And then we also have the Crypto Percéde.
This is the group of cockroaches that is most closely related to termites.
They're like the brown-hooded roach is they eat wood, they digest wood and with the aid of certain protozoans in its digestive tract,
that's how it is able to eat the wood. Otherwise, they don't really eat wood.
And then you have the Nocticoleidae, which is about 25 species of the cave dwelling cockroaches.
So you've got the Jeralox Roach or Nocticoleidae gerolchi.
It's an endangered species native to say, Kellys in Central Africa.
And so it's pretty, pretty fascinating.
But yeah, there's a, I know there's a couple of cave dwelling species that are actually extinct in the wild.
And you can pretty much only find them in the pet trade and the pet hobby.
So sad times, but you know, they're, these guys, the cave dwelling species of roaches are highly adaptive, usually to one cave in specific.
So, you know, there could be other species of cave dwellers that we don't even realize.
But again, it just speaks to like the resilience and the durability of these cockroaches that could live pretty much anywhere on Earth.
Obviously, except for the Arctic's, like, you know, maybe not so much Canada or, you know, Norway and all that.
I don't know.
But I also found a really cool legend from India about, it's called the woman who killed a cockroach.
And it's, it's, it's a cool legend.
I like it.
It's, you know, so if, if you're down, I'm, it's, you know, when I first read it, it was kind of long, but it has a good, it has a good message.
So we'll, we'll go with that.
So there was a woman who lived a pure and holy life.
She woke up early every day.
She spent a couple of hours in the morning meditating in prayer and thought she really thought of herself as pure, gentle, humble and holy.
But she also saw herself as better than other people because of her pureness, right?
So one morning when, when it was still dark, she went to the bathroom and accidentally stepped on a cockroach.
She put her into a frenzy and a dilemma because she suddenly realized that she was responsible for a death.
And she couldn't meditate that morning because it was just, it had got to her so badly, right?
And then she tried to concentrate.
She tried to clear her mind.
She tried to chant, but she was just restless.
So she went back to the bathroom, picked up the cockroach, covered it with some paper and threw it out of her house.
And as she was doing that, she saw a woman who was sweeping the road.
The holy woman called to the sweeper, every day you commit so many sins.
You have, have you ever thought about this?
Because she's saying that she committed so many swims, sins because as she's sweeping, she's also sweeping other insects like ants and stuff like that.
So she's like killing all these insects, right?
And so the sweeping woman said, sister, I do not wish to kill these ants, but I cannot help it.
It is my job to sweep the road.
And in the process, many ants and insects die.
That's why I pray in my heart that my faults are, sorry.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
So that's why I pray in my heart that my faults are as many as the drops of water in an ocean.
Have mercy, oh Lord, shower your grace and show this and save this drowning one.
And the holy woman said, well, you've committed so many sins and still you are not worried.
I have killed just one roach and I feel so miserable.
Then the sweeper says, well, you can give me the dead roach and I will bear this end of killing it.
So the holy woman agreed and put the roach in the garbage bin of the sweeping lady and then went back home lighthearted and happy.
And she felt great, right?
But both women, as you would have it, like as fate would have it, both women went to bed that night and died.
But the woman who thought she was pure and holy and, you know, better than everybody was actually taken to hell and the sweeper woman was taken to heaven.
So the holy woman was ego-centric and she protested, I am pure.
I committed no sin and, you know, prayed all the time.
I was constantly, you know, righteous, but because she was egotistical about it, because she did it because it gave her some sort of clout.
Or, you know, status.
She did it as a status symbol.
She went to hell.
Whereas the sweeping woman, because she was humble and she always kept it in her heart that I don't mean to do these things, but it's part of what I'm doing.
She always kept it in her heart and always she accepted the fact that she was going to sin in some capacity.
And so she trusted and had faith in the grace of God that she would be forgiven.
And that's why she went to heaven.
So essentially the lesson is that there is no greater gift than the grace of God and his mercy.
So the sweeper was humble.
She prayed in her heart for God's forgiveness.
And yeah.
So the message is, you know, don't do the good, pure things just because it elevates, you know, you think that it elevates your status among other people.
Do those things because it's right within your heart to do them, if that makes sense.
So what you do the thing is stop posting on Instagram.
Right.
I did something great today.
Look at me.
I'm wondering.
Right.
Right, right.
There's so many of them on Facebook, on YouTube, on Instagram.
Yeah.
They're like, oh, look at me.
I'm brilliant.
And they're only doing them things to get attention.
Right.
And that's doing it because they love doing it.
I do this job because I love doing it not because I want to make money.
So I feel like I'm doing the right thing for the right reason.
Yeah.
You know, it's within your heart to do that.
And that's.
You could actually, you could actually rewrite that for modern day, I think.
I think so too.
Yeah.
So media rather than a cockroach, you know, a homeless man and a cockroach, you know,
you could, you could, that sounds horrible, didn't it?
It needs to change a homeless man and a cockroach.
Yes.
I hope nobody's misposed me on that one.
Yeah.
But you know what I'm saying?
You could replace that and say, look, is this guy giving $50, whatever that is.
And video on it and put it on Facebook or YouTube.
That's the same, same premise, I think.
So yeah, I agree.
I mean, a lot of people see, you know, and I feel like I can relate this story really
well to cockroaches and kind of how their, their life cycle and what they do, you know,
because a lot of people, we see them as pests.
We see, you know, we, we detest them.
We hate them.
We think that they're dirty and smelly and awful.
And, you know, a lot of people believe that if you find cockroaches in your house, it
means that you're not a good housekeeper, which is not actually very accurate because
if you find a cockroach in your house, it just means they're, they're, they're, they
found like, you know, other bugs, other dead bugs, or they found, you know, a food source,
some kind of food source.
So to be completely honest, like cockroaches absolutely serve a pretty big purpose in our
world, just like beetles, you know, a lot, a lot of beetles that are, are their composters.
So basically they eat the stuff that, that is just decaying and, and dead and doesn't
really have any use anyway.
And so they're eating that and then they're replenishing the soil as they do it.
And then they are also, you know, a food source for birds.
And, and as I said before, you know, small mammals and reptiles and stuff like that.
So they, they actually serve a pretty decent purpose.
So I want to, I want to just say out there, you know, for people out there, like, if you
see a cockroach, let it be, if you see it in your house, I mean, I understand like picking
it up and putting it outside, like that's one thing or whatever, but try not to kill
them because they actually are doing good things for you.
So, yeah, I don't know.
Do you know what does kill them?
What kill, what?
Peanut butter.
Peanut butter kills the cockroaches.
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
That's interesting.
Try it.
It does.
Yeah.
Well, if I find a little cockroach in the wild or something, I'll try it with some peanut
butter, but I'll feel bad about it because.
I, well, we can't feel bad about it personally.
I mean, look, it's been a service neither of us, our believers.
So we don't have to, you know, for the moral story.
So we don't feel bad about it.
And secondly, we both keep arthropods that eats cockroaches.
True.
We have to feed cockroaches to them every day.
It's true.
We are past feeling bad about killing a cockroach on a freight.
I agree.
I do, you know, I do on some level have a belief.
I believe in a higher power.
I don't think I believe, I don't really believe so much in like a God or a deity.
I believe that we are all connected into that higher power.
So we're all, you know, we're all a part of it, if you will.
I think that, you know, life, life is the higher power.
Does that make sense at all?
Yes.
Atoms doing their thing is well.
Yeah, exactly.
Like we're, you know, then you should be, you can't destroy an atom.
So whatever you're, we're made of.
Yeah.
We're gone.
It will go into something else anyway.
Exactly.
It's all a cycle.
I mean, even the universe and our solar system has its own cycle.
I mean, you don't even know, like if you, if you narrow down into like underneath
your big toenail, there could be an entire, you know, universe and world inside
your toenail that you have no idea even exists.
And yes, I am talking about microbiology, like the bacterium and stuff like that.
That's a whole, whole universe.
It's a whole system all on its own.
And you don't even realize that it exists.
So yeah, I mean, I just, I just believe that everything is connected.
And so I do feel guilty a little bit when I, when I kill a cockroach.
Now I know that feeding cockroaches and crickets to my tarantulas, that's just the nature of
things.
And that's, that's how it goes.
Like that's, you know, I got, I like my tarantulas.
I love them.
I want them to stay alive.
So I need to feed them.
It's part of caring about them.
But that's not to say that I don't also care about those crickets and that I don't also
care about the roaches and stuff that I am feeding because their life also has value.
So I keep all my roaches and all my feeders in bioactive stuff because I like to give
them the life they would have in the wild.
In the wild.
Yeah.
Rather than keeping them like in egg cartons and just feeding them on one thing, you know,
so I prefer to give them that and, you know, now and again, some of them are unlucky.
Sure.
Yeah.
In the wilds, now and again, some of them are unlucky.
I agree.
It's true.
It's spiders and snakes and, you know, frogs, birds.
That's what that's generally what they are there for.
Yeah.
They're just food.
Everything is food at some point.
Everybody is everybody's food.
That's, that's how it is.
Every, every creature is food for another creature somewhere, somewhere in the, you know what
I mean?
Bugs, bugs get eaten by birds and birds get eaten by snakes and snakes get eaten by leopards
and leopards don't, they get eaten when they die by the bugs and the birds by the bugs.
But see how it's a cycle.
So the leopard eats all the things and then when the leopard dies, all the things eat the
leopards.
So full circle.
A strange, a strange line there.
I really did.
But you know what?
You keep laughing now.
You say, weird line you went down.
So it would have been easier if you started with fish.
You know, I did.
I skipped fish.
Let's pick that one.
That one's difficult.
Yeah.
No, I mean, it's a good, I feel like that legend has a good message though.
It's like just because it's a cockroach doesn't mean that you're better than it.
You know, yeah.
It's a moral scam.
It doesn't have to be religious.
It can be a moral dilemma.
Yeah, exactly.
Moral dilemma.
I agree.
Be a good person basically.
Right.
Don't be a good person for sure.
You know, yeah.
Don't think that you're better than somebody else just because you're doing the good things
or whatever.
It doesn't make you better.
That's a lesson I think a lot of people could learn.
Well, it, you know, it was interesting because that there was a few, there were a couple of myths and legends that I found involving cockroaches.
But the weirdest thing about it was that none of them actually had much to do with a cockroach.
There just happened to be a cockroach in the story.
So I picked this one because I felt that it was relevant.
Like I felt like it was the most relevant to a cockroach's life than the others.
The others were kind of odd.
And I honestly didn't really understand one of them.
I was just like, what on earth did I just read?
You know, so I didn't want that one, you know.
I have been there because obviously when I researched my books and whatnot, I always put yes.
I always put myths at the end.
The last chapter I always put some myths and legends.
I have gone through so many myths and legends of certain things.
I read them all and some of them just, I just think like, do I need to be in the 10th century to understand what this is talking about?
It's just fine.
That's what you think.
Push it aside.
It's absolute nonsense.
So yeah, I do understand what you mean.
I really, really, really, truly do.
I mean, I think that some stories just don't age well.
No, not at all.
Yeah, I can't understand why when you do see them, I see a lot of memes and like inspirational stuff on social media.
Yeah.
And as I've studied the past and other things, I can actually relate to them and look at them and say, OK, that was from the Mongols.
You know what I mean?
Or something like that.
Sure.
Chinese province from, oh, Chinese province from thousands of years ago or something.
And they've just dragged it up and give it a modern spin.
Right.
Otherwise, it just absolutely, it's just.
But a lot of, I mean, a lot of them, I feel like a lot of some of the oldest teachings are really, they're very relevant even now.
Like a lot of a lot of the works in the Buddha and what the Buddha taught, you know, is it's still very relevant.
You know, I mean, I know if it, if you're not Buddhist, that's OK.
I'm just saying take a look at that book because there's a lot of really great wisdom in it that that definitely still is very relevant today.
And I, you know, I think that's that's really true for cockroaches, man.
They're they're resilient.
They're, you know, determined.
They will survive at at, you know, above all else they survive.
If you get over the fact that something is a cockroach.
Mm hmm.
Well, you're looking at it.
You can actually see which ones are pretty then.
I don't have to show you there with the headlight roach.
And you've got the question mark.
You've got the dominoes.
You've got the banana roach.
Yeah.
Or all the roaches.
But if you just pause for a second and put in your mind that they're not a roach, is the Beatles.
Yeah.
You'll find yourself saying that's pretty.
Yeah.
But soon you say to yourself, that's a cockroach, it's hopefully.
Yeah, I would be dropped into your head from being very small, but cockroaches are awful.
And that's all I agree.
I mean, I think even the word cockroach comes with kind of those negative connotations.
Like we just see it as something that's super negative.
I mean, I've heard people use cockroach as an insult to insult somebody else.
And I'm like, don't insult the cockroach.
What are you talking about?
Exactly.
And same thing with snakes.
Like, I've, you know, there's a lot of kind of idioms in English, you know, where you
might call somebody, oh, they're a snake.
And I'm like, well, don't insult the snake like that.
Because the snakes didn't do anything to deserve that bad, you know what I mean?
That bad reputation.
That's not cool.
Snakes are doing us a favor.
They're taking care of the rodent populations.
And you know what I mean?
Like, what are you talking about a snake?
Get out of here.
But yeah, you know, we use cockroaches.
Yeah.
The most useful.
I agree.
You know, the ones we don't like, like the snakes, the scorpions, you know, spiders.
Spiders get really bad rep anyway.
They always have to.
You know, your cockroaches, your isopods, they all do this wonderful job.
Yeah.
Pestering.
Right.
If it wasn't for them, you take it, you need to sit down in a chair, close your eyes and
imagine the world of what would happen really deeply if you take one of them out of the
equation.
Right.
And you can see for yourself what would happen.
And think about everything, like all the leaves of Pylop, all the dead wood of Pylop, all the
dead insects and dead bodies of things with Pylop, which and then all of these things
that were created by those dead bodies.
Right.
And then that makes it all just some things.
I guess loads more than that.
But just some things would make a massive difference to how we live or even if we could live.
Yeah, absolutely.
Just sitting back and thinking, I don't like cockroaches, but if I took them all away and
then you get it, it's the same with the, it's the mosquito dilemma.
Yeah.
Like if we eradicated the mosquito, people go, oh yeah, that's great thing.
No more malaria, no more texting, no more this, no more that.
Texty.
Never mind.
You know that.
It would be terrible for a dragon flies and be bats because then they wouldn't have a food source so much anymore.
Fish, tadpole, bats, birds, there's loads of things that eat mosquitoes and that would be an absolute disaster to the ecosystem if you took away mosquitoes.
Right.
It's something to not mess with.
You know cure the disease by all means don't blame the messenger.
I agree.
That's my view on it.
Don't blame the messenger.
Yeah.
If something gives you some kind of disease, just cure the disease.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Everything has a purpose.
Everything has a job.
Even we do.
I mean, people are weird.
To be honest.
Honestly, honestly, if you really sit back and think about what I just said a minute ago, I can't think what we do.
I can't think what use humans are to the planet and to the ecosystem and to the third chain.
I don't know what we bring to the table.
I really do not.
I think we used to, but I think so much anymore.
I don't think we do.
I think before we helped control the populations of predators so that the predators don't predate too much on herbivores and all kinds of things.
I don't agree with you.
When COVID came around and there was that huge shutdown all throughout the world, did you see the amount of pollution that just disappeared within that two weeks?
It only took two weeks or a month or whatever for us to stop driving around, stop leaving our houses, stop doing all those things.
And everything was like, oh, we're fixing. Yay. And then we come back out and everything's crap again.
We saw things in the garden that we'd never seen before.
I've lived in this particular area for 50 years.
I saw things in the garden during COVID that I'd never seen here.
Wow.
I've actually been out in the countryside to see before. I've seen them in our garden on numerous occasions during COVID.
And now we don't see them anymore again.
No, right?
It's a human problem. We are the actual parasite.
We're the bacterium on the face of the earth.
Yeah.
So, okay.
Yeah, like I think we were supposed to be guardians.
We're supposed to help the earth flourish and to continue doing what it does.
But we've really, I think we got too smart for our own good or something. I don't know.
The aliens came down and meddled. There's a few conspiracies.
Well, they need to come down again and do some more meddling.
Okay.
All right. So we're going to do our shameless plug.
I'm sure you've got some cool stuff going on this week, Simon. What you got going on?
Well, as you've probably noticed, I think you saw her earlier. We have a baby squirrel.
A baby squirrel. Yes.
She's making it very complicated and interesting.
So I still got to do what I've done before, but now we have a baby squirrel.
But he's now fast asleep in my wife's car.
Oh, he's so cute though. So cute.
She's still asleep. So I've punched a few videos of her.
I'm not going to take over the channel with the squirrel.
It's no longer the mantis garden. It's just the squirrel guarding.
It is very tempting. It is very tempting. But now I'm not going to do that because, you know, my passion is the books.
Of course.
But, you know, mammals, mammals and birds, we've had a few.
We'll have them all.
We're quite happy to help if they require it.
Of course.
It's possibly do some stuff. I've got so many eggs, or column eggs.
It's easier. Yeah.
For mantis and other things that I've not been doing very much about like selling.
Okay. So that's what I'm doing.
I've got too many spiders as well. So they're all spiders.
Cheap spiders.
You know, yeah. Get in touch with Simon for sure.
Okay.
Okay. So my shameless plug this weekend is the All-American Plant and Reptile Expo here in Castle Rock, Colorado at the Douglas County Fairgrounds.
I will be there. I have a cool... I have a t-shirt, obviously, because I went to the first one that there was.
And they... I think that they only do a few locations, but it's such a cool expo. It's well organized.
The vendors, everybody says they absolutely love this expo. They love the people who do it.
So, and they, of course, have all kinds of cool inverts and plants and reptiles.
So it's definitely... it's definitely a show worth going to.
It's worth the drive.
Are we to expect a video?
Yeah. I'm going to try and take some footage for sure, because I think that...
You know, I think this expo definitely deserves the spotlight on my channel a little bit.
So yeah, be expecting a couple of videos. I've got...
Again, I actually have my Pampafabetus species, Makala, or Pampafabetus Makala, has a freaking mold outbreak in his...
Or her enclosure, so I need to, like, take him out and redo that whole enclosure.
So I'm not sure if I want to film it, because, you know, I'm afraid of the mold, but I will probably film it and show you how I clean everything and all that.
I've also... Huh?
Is it white mold in the substrate?
Yeah, it's just white mold, you know.
Oh, right.
Yeah, and I did release, like, isopods into the enclosure thinking, oh, the isopods will take care of it.
I'm pretty sure that my Makala ate all of the isopods.
So...
Yeah.
Yeah, I can't stop a tarantula from doing what it's going to do, and so I'm pretty sure she decided that, oh, you're an invader. I'm going to eat you.
So now there's a mold issue, and so I've got to take care of that.
So be expecting, you know, a video about the mold and, like, how to clean up the enclosure and make sure the mold doesn't come back.
Because I do... I think I have another one that has a little bit of mold, but not as bad as this one.
And then I've got some juvenile tarantulas that I also need to put in bigger enclosures.
So be expecting that.
I've been... So my son left the... My son left, and he is in Minnesota now, you know, doing his thing, which is cool.
And as you guys know, I'm a mom, okay? We do mom stuff.
And now that my son is not here, I'm like, huh? I don't know what to do with myself a little bit.
So, you know, I'm just kind of going through this weird empty nester thing.
That's not to say that he won't come back.
But, you know, he's about to be 18 in October. I mean, he's getting to be a man.
And it was only a matter of time that he flew the coop.
And, you know, I hope I'm not aging myself a whole lot, but...
Yeah, I'm older than a lot of you might think I am.
But in any case, my kiddo is doing his thing.
And I did a good job because that's what we do as moms.
We want them to go and do their thing and be able to take care of themselves
and to be able to, you know, provide for themselves, do all these things.
So, I did a good job, but I miss him.
So, if you've noticed that I haven't really had a whole lot of videos on my channel lately,
that's why it's because I'm over here going, oh, I miss my kiddo.
You know, I have less to do. I have less to clean.
I have, you know what I'm saying? So, it's a thing.
But I also have Salmopis, Armenia babies, slings.
I believe they're all like third, instar, fourth instar. They're all around that area.
So, if you are in the Denver, Colorado area and you maybe want to trade
or if you just want a couple of slings, send me a message, hit me up.
I'm on the Colorado Racknid Club. You can find me on Facebook, obviously, here on YouTube.
I am happy to give you some slings. But I think that's all I've got.
The empty nest, did you go through an empty nest or phase as well?
No, we went through a phase of where don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Because when you leave, you've got more rooms for books.
Yeah, well, I mean, I've got an empty room that I've got to clean out.
And I'm probably going to put all the tarantulas in that room instead of my living room.
So, you know, yeah, I mean, it's a win.
My son is now 35. He just lives a few houses away.
My daughter doesn't live that far away either. I mean, like just a few more houses away.
So, you know, so there's my grandchildren at my daughter.
I haven't felt the emptiness to think because, oh, well, that's really nice.
Okay, good.
Someone's here this afternoon, all afternoon.
It's just like what Lily just said that they are here all the time.
Lucky. Mine's a whole two states away.
I have. Yeah. Okay.
So, mine's not down the street.
It's a it's a 12 hour drive from where I'm at.
So, but in any case, that's that's all we've got for you guys today.
Thanks so much for watching and tuning in.
And I really hope that Simon and I could enlighten you on cockroaches.
And hopefully you don't see them quite as negatively as they did before.
So, yeah, we'll see you guys real soon.
And yeah, thanks.
Thanks again for watching. We love you all.
Thanks, Simon.
See you later.