SOCIAL ROACHES

Cockroaches send a shudder of repulsion down the spines of many people but, apart from being the earliest known cavernicolous animal (there’s a 99 million year old cave fossil), they actually play a vital role in ecosystems even if you probably object to them in your salad. They form an important element in ecological trophic webs and are a significant food source for many other animals. As major decomposers, their feeding on all kinds of vegetable matter also greatly enhances the breaking down of wastes and nutrient cycling. 

There are several thousand known cockroach species in the world, though only a few occur in Britain, notably the oriental and German varieties. Until recently, however, even though they can sometimes be found in fairly large numbers, everyone thought all cockroaches were solitary insects. None had been known to live in social groups like ants, wasps or bees with a queen and workers. 

Enter Peter Vršanský of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and local conservationist Thierry Garcia at the Sumac Muyu Foundation in Ecuador who have discovered that a colourful red and green cloud forest cockroach species called Melyroidea magnifica  apparently lives in colonies with a queen and workers, making nests in trees or bamboo. You can read more in the journal The Science of Nature, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-020-01694-x. 

This field research is yet another example of how little we know about the natural world, yet we are destroying it before we even know what creatures are in it or how they live and enhance ecosystem function. Cockroaches are great survivors: they were here on Earth long before us and will surely outlive humankind. We should think twice before we exterminate them.

Betts Ecology has banned ecologically harmful insecticides and we do not use them on our sites. All of us need to think more carefully before we judge animals as pests. We need to stop acting unthinkingly against them without understanding the connectivity of ecosystems, ecology’s counterintuitive complexity and the consequences of how we behave.

© Betts Ecology