So normally, when a girl says that she's a nerd, or a geek, you picture something that might be a lot cuter than the reality of the situation...meaning, maybe in your mind, you're thinking of Zooey Deschanel in a pair of athletic socks playing Tetris on her Blackberry. Maybe you're thinking of Felicia Day dressed in that World of Warcraft outfit, singing about how you wanna date her avatar (can't blame ya for that one). Or maybe, just maybe, you're thinking of every Cosplay you've ever seen on the internet involving a Pikachu get-up.
[alright, maybe not all of them.]
[alright, maybe not all of them.]But we aren't here to talk about Cosplay, Pikachu, or things that are cute. I'm going to share with you one of the things that I'm a total nerd about... FUCKING BUGS. AWESOME!!!
I'm a reptile nerd and am proud to admit it, and while a collection of snakes and a cat that is trying to eat them is already making me a very undesirable roommate, I've added Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches to the brood.
Click the link below to either read all about them and maybe start thinking that they're awesome, or to throw up everything you've ever eaten.
Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, or Gromphadorhina portentosa to you far more science-y types, are one of the largest species of cockroaches. I'll give you three guesses to figure out where they're from. They're generally known for their trademark 'hissing' noise, and in my experience both genders do it, which is created by releasing gas from pores located on their thorax and abdomen. Unlike most cockroaches, they are completely wingless, and the fact that they're so easy to manage has made them a first pick whenever someone is looking for a big, nasty bug to use in a film set (see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Men in Black, Starship Troopers, Creepshow, etc.), and they're relatively easy to obtain and have therefore made a few appearances on reality television shows. One notable example included a competition to see who could eat the most live hissing cockroaches in a sitting (haha, sitting?), which is hilarious, because they have a mild toxin they can release when agitated or smashed that numbs the mouth, makes it difficult to swallow, and tastes sort of like apple cider vinegar. Don't ask me how I know that.
Here's how this whole roach thing started with me. My boyfriend at the time was planning a photoshoot for his band that involved hissing cockroaches, and we, weird folk that we were, figured that we would get about five of them and then just keep them as pets afterwards if they stayed alive much longer. (As you can imagine, we didn't know a whole lot about them at this point.) The shoot went fairly well, and there we were, with five cockroaches in a ten-gallon tank. There was a complicated de-lousing of the roaches, which I wont get into but it involved flour and is called the "shake and bake" method, and they were happy just to have a carrot or some other rotting vegetable to munch on and something to hide under. Unfortunately, we didn't really factor in the fact that if you stick a bunch of girls and boys together in a glass box, sexy-time is bound to happen, and we quickly went from having five roaches to roughly two hundred. And this is definitely one of those species that doesn't produce adorable offspring.
Now, before you decide that I'm just a crazy person and you shouldn't be reading this blog (no, don't!! Felix will kill me!), here's why they actually make kinda cool pets. They don't move fast or scatter like the regular infesting cockroaches (meaning, german browns, the american cockroach, and the like), and in fact, don't infest at all...unless, you know, you live inside of a rotten log, which is quite frankly your own problem to deal with, if that is the case. In fact, Madagascars are BIG (2-4" at their full size), and generally too fat too move too quickly. They're friendly, as much as an insect could be, and will chill out on a shoulder or arm much like a lizard or snake would. If you're looking for an insect to keep as a pet, here's why they're pretty much superior in that category:
MADAGASCAR HISSING COCKROACHES ARE BETTER THAN...
Scorpions, because they wont sting you, pinch you, or murder you in your sleep;
Tarantulas, because they wont leave those weird white hairs all over you, build webs or be generally terrifying because they have way too many legs;
Walking Sticks, because they wont get lost in the forest or break in half at random because they're all...twig-like...;
Praying Mantises, because they wont eat each other, die after six months, or murder you in your sleep;
Black Widow Spiders, because I shit you not, you can actually order these little bastards as pets. Why you would want to do that, I don't know, because they will OBVIOUSLY murder you in your sleep;
Butterflies, because they're actually interesting, you don't have to let them go and they don't waste your time by spending a month in a cocoon;
Centipedes/Millipedes, because if a tarantula has too many legs, there is something fundamentally wrong with anything that has a million of them; also I read this Chinese fairy tale once where a gigantic centipede had eaten half of a village and enslaved the rest, so....keep that in mind when choosing your pet;
I'm a reptile nerd and am proud to admit it, and while a collection of snakes and a cat that is trying to eat them is already making me a very undesirable roommate, I've added Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches to the brood.
Click the link below to either read all about them and maybe start thinking that they're awesome, or to throw up everything you've ever eaten.
Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, or Gromphadorhina portentosa to you far more science-y types, are one of the largest species of cockroaches. I'll give you three guesses to figure out where they're from. They're generally known for their trademark 'hissing' noise, and in my experience both genders do it, which is created by releasing gas from pores located on their thorax and abdomen. Unlike most cockroaches, they are completely wingless, and the fact that they're so easy to manage has made them a first pick whenever someone is looking for a big, nasty bug to use in a film set (see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Men in Black, Starship Troopers, Creepshow, etc.), and they're relatively easy to obtain and have therefore made a few appearances on reality television shows. One notable example included a competition to see who could eat the most live hissing cockroaches in a sitting (haha, sitting?), which is hilarious, because they have a mild toxin they can release when agitated or smashed that numbs the mouth, makes it difficult to swallow, and tastes sort of like apple cider vinegar. Don't ask me how I know that.
Here's how this whole roach thing started with me. My boyfriend at the time was planning a photoshoot for his band that involved hissing cockroaches, and we, weird folk that we were, figured that we would get about five of them and then just keep them as pets afterwards if they stayed alive much longer. (As you can imagine, we didn't know a whole lot about them at this point.) The shoot went fairly well, and there we were, with five cockroaches in a ten-gallon tank. There was a complicated de-lousing of the roaches, which I wont get into but it involved flour and is called the "shake and bake" method, and they were happy just to have a carrot or some other rotting vegetable to munch on and something to hide under. Unfortunately, we didn't really factor in the fact that if you stick a bunch of girls and boys together in a glass box, sexy-time is bound to happen, and we quickly went from having five roaches to roughly two hundred. And this is definitely one of those species that doesn't produce adorable offspring.Now, before you decide that I'm just a crazy person and you shouldn't be reading this blog (no, don't!! Felix will kill me!), here's why they actually make kinda cool pets. They don't move fast or scatter like the regular infesting cockroaches (meaning, german browns, the american cockroach, and the like), and in fact, don't infest at all...unless, you know, you live inside of a rotten log, which is quite frankly your own problem to deal with, if that is the case. In fact, Madagascars are BIG (2-4" at their full size), and generally too fat too move too quickly. They're friendly, as much as an insect could be, and will chill out on a shoulder or arm much like a lizard or snake would. If you're looking for an insect to keep as a pet, here's why they're pretty much superior in that category:
MADAGASCAR HISSING COCKROACHES ARE BETTER THAN...
Scorpions, because they wont sting you, pinch you, or murder you in your sleep;
Tarantulas, because they wont leave those weird white hairs all over you, build webs or be generally terrifying because they have way too many legs;
Walking Sticks, because they wont get lost in the forest or break in half at random because they're all...twig-like...;
Praying Mantises, because they wont eat each other, die after six months, or murder you in your sleep;
Black Widow Spiders, because I shit you not, you can actually order these little bastards as pets. Why you would want to do that, I don't know, because they will OBVIOUSLY murder you in your sleep;
Butterflies, because they're actually interesting, you don't have to let them go and they don't waste your time by spending a month in a cocoon;
Centipedes/Millipedes, because if a tarantula has too many legs, there is something fundamentally wrong with anything that has a million of them; also I read this Chinese fairy tale once where a gigantic centipede had eaten half of a village and enslaved the rest, so....keep that in mind when choosing your pet;
Deaths Head Moths, because...actually, there isn't really anything cooler than they are, so never mind.
[if you raise death's head moths, you'll be as cool as this guy is]
[if you raise death's head moths, you'll be as cool as this guy is]All they need is some substrate (I prefer coconut husk/reptile bark, but that's just me; they don't need humidity (in the sense that it will kill them if they have it), so they'd probably be cool with anything other than sand, which would get all over their food and in their shells), something to hide under (ghetto fabulous folks: use egg crate pieces!), and a warm temperature, ideally at least sixty degrees...however, my roaches have survived through the winter at temperatures that dipped below that, and seemed to be just fine. The reccommended food is pieces of carrots (contains just enough moisture) or rotting lettuce (the worst smelling thing in the world), but roaches are perfectly happy with...get this...cat food. Any dry animal food, high in protein, is satisfactory.
[Sound familiar?]
They're available for cheap at most reptile stores, as they are commonly sold as feeders for iguanas and the like...a pet with little to no maintenance that will either impress or disgust your houseguests? Perfect.
[Sound familiar?]They're available for cheap at most reptile stores, as they are commonly sold as feeders for iguanas and the like...a pet with little to no maintenance that will either impress or disgust your houseguests? Perfect.
Hey, if Disney can make it cute... [come on, who DIDN'T want a pet cockroach after watching WALL-E?!]
ReplyDeleteSo are they as resilient as the smaller roaches? I dropped a dictionary on a cockroach while in Belize and the freakin' book started CRAWLING AWAY!