Cockroaches are brought to port cities in South America, Eastern Europe and South Asia from the African continent, where they originated at sea, and then gradually spread to temperate regions and even cold regions in the north. Now they have spread all over the world and become important urban pests today.
First, the ecological habits of cockroaches
Cockroaches are gradually metamorphosed insects, and their whole life history includes three stages: egg, nymph and adult. Cockroaches have strong adaptability and reproductive ability. Cockroach adults can mate about a week after emergence. Males can mate many times in their lifetime, and females only mate once or twice. One mating can make them produce fertilized eggs for life.
Female insects lay eggs in special colloidal capsules, forming egg sheaths (egg pods). Ootheca is secreted by female insects, with smooth shell and hard texture, which has waterproof function and can protect the development of its internal embryos. The shape of egg sheaths, the number of egg sheaths laid by females and the number of eggs contained in them all vary from species to species, and even the same cockroach may be different due to different environmental and nutritional conditions.
The behavior of cockroach spawning sheath varies from species to species. There are two main types of cockroaches commonly found indoors:
1. Periplaneta americana lays eggs in hidden places. First, it bites into a depression on the surface of the object and spreads the egg sheath inside. Then, it covers the egg sheath with sticky saliva mixed with sawdust or paper. They sometimes use saliva to directly stick the egg sheath to the habitat, such as kitchen cabinets, wooden cases, cartons, table corners or sundries.
3. The way Blattella germanica lays eggs is that after the female lays the egg sheath, she drags it at the abdominal end and doesn't lay eggs until the nymph is about to hatch from the egg sheath. The embryo in the egg is developing. The water and nutrition needed by the female worm are constantly obtained, and the egg sheath is carried by the female worm, so it can be better protected.
Blattella germanica generally has 4-8 spawning sheaths, with 37-44 eggs in the egg sheaths, and the egg period is 15-30 days. Periplaneta americana generally has 2 1-59 spawning sheaths, and there are 16 eggs in the egg sheaths, and the egg period is 24- 100 days. The replication speed is very fast.
Second, the habitat habits of cockroaches
Cockroaches like to live in warm, humid, food-rich and crevice places, which are the four basic conditions for their reproduction. All buildings where human beings live and live generally have these conditions, so cockroaches have become health pests that infringe on thousands of households.
Cockroaches like the dark and fear the light. They lie down during the day and go out at night. During the day, their capitals are hidden in dark places, such as indoor furniture, cracks in walls and corners. Go out for activities or foraging at night, especially after lights out and people sleep. Therefore, in the 24 hours of a day, about 75% of the time is resting.
Cockroaches are flat and can hide in narrow gaps. For example, the adults and nymphs of Blattella germanica can hide in the gap of only 1.6 mm, and when they live in the gap, their tentacles often extend outward and wave from time to time to keep alert.
Different kinds of habitats are different. Blattella germanica is more common in houses with heating equipment, and likes to live in various gaps, such as around pipes, cabinets and kitchens, refrigerators, and gaps between walls and partitions and floors. Periplaneta americana also likes to live in large cracks and caves, preferring humid environment, and often lives in underground wells, sewer rooms, basements and other places in groups. The hotel's heating pipes and sewer pipes are the base camp of cockroaches.
In winter, cockroaches mostly live in the kitchen and live and move near heat sources such as stoves and radiators. In hot summer, the temperature in the kitchen is too high, and they migrate to other places, so the density of cockroaches in the kitchen decreases, but the distribution range expands. The diffusion of cockroaches can be divided into active diffusion and passive diffusion.
During the day, if there are patches of cockroaches on the open wall, behind the door and in the corner of the ceiling, it means that the cockroaches in this place have arrived? Worms are full of trouble? The degree of. It is urgent to eliminate cockroaches.
Cockroaches also live in groups. It is often found that in a habitat, there are always as few as a few, and as many as dozens or hundreds of them gather together, mainly because of the lure of pheromones. Both adults and nymphs of cockroaches secrete one? Aggregating pheromones? Secreted by rectal pad, it can be excreted with feces. In places where cockroaches live, spots formed by their feces can often be seen. The more feces, the more cockroaches gather. It can be seen that hygiene is an important measure in cockroach control.
Third, the feeding habits of cockroaches.
Cockroaches are omnivorous insects with a wide range of food. For example, in the kitchen and canteen, they can eat all kinds of food, including facial expressions, rice, cakes, vegetarian and cooked food, melons and fruits, drinks and so on. And I especially like fragrant, sweet and oily pasta. Cockroaches have the habit of eating fat. Among all kinds of vegetable oils, sesame oil attracts them the most, so some places are called? Oil thief? . Among sugars, brown sugar and maltose have the strongest attraction to them.
Besides all kinds of food, cockroaches often bite other things, such as houses, warehouses, storage rooms and so on. They can chew cotton wool products, leather products, paper, books, soap and so on. In outdoor garbage dumps, sewers, toilets and other places, they feed on corrupt organic matter and even kill animals.
It is precisely because cockroaches crawl everywhere and eat everything that they pollute and swallow a lot of pathogens. Coupled with their bad habit of eating and pulling things, they have become mechanical communicators of some pathogens.
Water is more important than food for the survival of cockroaches. Cockroaches are hungry but not thirsty. For example, if Periplaneta americana is only given dry food and no water, the females can only survive for 40 days and the males can only survive for 27 days. On the other hand, if there is water and no food, females can live for 90 days and males can live for 43 days.