- It’s game over, man, game over. The bugs won.
Cockroaches are revolting. You probably don’t want to even think about them — let alone the disgusting ways they have their vermin sex.
Well, we’re sorry, but we’re going to have to talk about cockroaches and how they bang. And there’s a good reason for it.
They’re developing literal new tastes in sex. And that could make the pests much more difficult to control.
A recent study has found that the use of glucose — a major component in regular table sugar — in roach poisons led to German cockroaches no longer liking it. That posed a welcome problem for the bugs since their males use glucose to attract loathsome ladies.
No roach sex, no more roaches. That’s great, right?
But now, roach males have changed their gifts. They’ve started using a different kind of sugar and shortening the sex act — and their numbers are skyrocketing again.
That also means that our current pesticides are quickly becoming worthless. After all, since roaches no longer like glucose, why would they eat the poison?
Sickening Sex
Before we explain anything else, we should probably tell you how cockroaches have sex. Just, give me a moment here.
I don’t want to write this, I really don’t.
Okay, so we’re talking about the number one pest in the entire world, the German cockroach. Blattella germanica, if you want to be fancy.
I don’t know why you would when it’s about roaches.
Anyway, when a male roach spots a female, he begins to approach her. If the female doesn’t immediately run away, the male will raise its wings to expose its back.
A gland on the male’s back will ooze a drop of sweet, glucose-laden liquid. That’s called a “nuptial gift” and it’s way too cute of a name for what it is.
The female climbs up onto the male’s back to devour the sugary slime. And that puts her in a perfect position for the male to stick his… Telescopic roach penis in for four seconds of filthy fun.
You almost want to feel bad for the female roach. But then you remember it’s a cockroach and doesn’t deserve any kind of pleasure.
No More Babies
We needed to go over that repugnant process because it’s important for what comes next. As soon as pest control experts (bless them) realized roaches use glucose in mating, they had a great idea.
They put glucose on poisons and traps. And it worked like a charm.
The glucose attracted the pests like a magnet and they died in the thousands. Of course, there are always more roaches, but every dead one is only a good thing.
Then, about 10 years later, something horrible happened. A pest control company in Florida found an apartment where the roaches just wouldn’t die.
They no longer ate the poison or walked into traps because they had evolved. Their taste buds had changed and glucose now tasted unpleasant to them.
But there was still a silver lining. Although the roaches didn’t die from pesticides, they weren’t making more roaches either.
Remember how that nuptial gift is mostly glucose? Well, now the female roaches didn’t warm up to the gift because it tasted bad to them.
Suppose that works. Let the roaches go extinct from not f***ing anymore. Fine by me.
Can’t Keep a Vile Bug Down
But that’s not how it goes. Male roaches figured that since evolution got them into this mess, it would get them out of it.
The male cockroaches have developed two things that have helped them get their nauseating freak on again.
First, they altered the recipe of the nuptial gift. Instead of glucose, they now use mostly maltotriose. That’s another kind of sugar that still tastes sweet to the female.
Second, they shaved a second off the copulation time. They’re not even two-pump chumps anymore — two to three seconds and the deed is done.
The roaches are having their repulsive insectile sex again, resulting in swarms upon swarms of new vermin. And our poisons don’t work on them anymore, because they’re still based around glucose.
Sure, pest controllers could change the bait to maltotriose. But then the roaches will probably just swap back to glucose, or another sugar.
We can’t win. We can’t kill them. The roaches really will inherit the Earth and dance on our graves.
It’s over.
And the researchers have the gall to be excited about finding all this out.
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