What is the life cycle of a cockroach?
Long time guys! thought I should be back with some information that my usual funny anecdotes.
God knows who in their right mind would want to know about the life cycle of a cockroach. But then, my cubby-hole of a flat got infested. To save my sanity, and vanquish my insanitary enemy, I immediately wanted to know everything about them. In order to destroy them in such a manner, that they would have no hopes of ruining my peace ever again. Here’s what I gathered:
Cockroaches mostly have three stages of life: egg, nymph and adult. (Is the adult one slimier than the young ones?) (Do they all go to how to scare the shit out of humans’ school?) These creepy crawlies mostly live for 6–15 months (Damn that’s a lot of time spent in your kitchen shelf or inside the crannies of your playroom) depending upon various factors such as species, moisture, temperature etc. A good in-depth (just imagine) reading into these factors helped me understand how to get rid of my infestation problem quite a lot.
Cockroach Life — Phase 1
Egg — the birth of this vicious, ungodly creature begins with just a teeny tiny egg. Sounds pretty aw, as in benign and simple, right? Well, just wait for it. One mother cockroach can lay anywhere between ten to fifty egg cases, these will resemble leathery capsules and once the female chooses your home as her lair, you will soon start finding these under your bed, couch, amidst your dishes, deep into the shelves and God knows where else.
It takes these roaches almost about 2 months to hatch, although apparently their egg stage can last upto 14 to 100 days, again depending upon the species and climate. It’s seen that the more tropical and stickier the climate, the better these devils grow and flourish. To my utter horror, I found that female cockroaches can lay multiple egg cases in their lifetimes and a certain German lady species can produce up to three hundred eggs a year. My word!
Cockroach Life — Phase 2
The next stage is the nymphal stage and no, it doesn’t get any better. They hatch, undergo several molts and as they grow little by little into the monsters they are, they shed. Ew! From the moment they leave their shells, these immature pests are initially soft, white (maybe even fluffy, gross) and then eventually they grow into their recognizable selves as the bodies harden, and take tan, brown colours.
A sure-fire way to know your house is infested is when you spot the cast-off eggs of these pests around your furniture, kitchen sink or even playroom corners. Even before these pests reach adulthood, in their nymph stage itself, they are capable of damaging your property and lives’, ruining it with bacteria.
Cockroach Life — Phase 3
Post the full and final molt, the nymphs enter their adulthood and thus begins a long drawn era of horror and harm. The worst part is, as soon as these pests enter this stage, not only are they fully capable of tainting your household with harmful bacteria, they can start reproducing themselves, immediately. In just one life-span, these pests can infest thousands of buildings, lives, hopes, dreams of a clean and calming house-hold. Now that you are fully aware of their vicious life-cycle, maybe you can keep an eye open for those cast-off shells or get a precautionary pest control done from the experts.
