The bad news about cockroaches is that there are around 3500 different species of them around the world, 69 of which inhabit the United States alone. The good news, however, is that only 10 of them are considered household pests, while the rest are in jungles and forests, or even in the water (shrimp). American cockroaches, which are not native to America, is considered one of the most common types of cockroach in the world. Just like the Americans during the 20th century, American cockroach are everywhere to be found, from the US itself to tropical countries of Asia, to the warm Mediterranean coast, to islands such as the Canary.
Although roaches’ flying can be terrifying, it is a fact that not many cockroaches have the ability to fly in the first place. For a start, only fully-grown cockroaches have wings, while younger ones do not, resembling water bugs from their outlook. Additionally, female roaches are shorter than male ones, and with their included responsibility of carrying eggs, female cockroaches are rarely able to fly. This leaves us only with adult male cockroaches, which despite their capability of flying, are not so good at it. For insects, cockroaches are relatively large in size with quite small wings in terms of body proportion. In reality, cockroaches do not actually ‘flying’. Instead, they use their wings to glide from higher to lower grounds, or glide short distances for a specific reason. The only time when roaches actually ‘fly’ is flying the economy, sometimes business class, or in rarer situations, first class. ~
In most cases, cockroaches’ flying is a direct result of the surroundings’ temperature. Although cockroaches have adapted to living in tropical climate and conditions, the ideal temperature for American roaches to live ranges from 24 to 30 degrees Celsius (75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit). Therefore, roaches aren’t seen outside often during the day, when the outdoor heat can reach well above 35 degrees. This is not the case for late evenings and mid-nights when it is a lot more chilly, thus a lot more roaches in search of food. During summer nights, however, increased heat may cause cockroaches to flap their wings in an attempt to escape heat sources, especially objects that have been heated during the day.
In other cases, human’s presence or sudden changes in lighting and sound can lead to panic among cockroaches, making them fly in random direction in the hope of escaping whatever danger may be coming. It is also worth mentioning that roaches do not like the smell of humans, but instead thrive in places that are damp, dark, and covered in unpleasant smells. So the next time a flying cockroach goes straight for your head, face, shoulder or limb, you can be sure that it is just an accident, just like how people sometimes run over one another during a catastrophe.
The rarest cases when roaches actually use their wings are when they… do exercises. As a living being, cockroaches make sure to flex their muscles once in a while to ensure everything is okay, just like how we humans cracks our fingers after a long day working. And who knows if the manhole cover is an outdoor gym for roaches where the male ones would show off their bodily muscularity to find their mates?
As mentioned earlier, these terrible flyers often could not stay airborne for longer than 10 seconds, so higher floors of an office building should not have these insects roaming around everywhere. Nevertheless, if roaches are found on the top floors of a building, it is best to perform a sanitary check-up to see if any corner is in such bad conditions that roaches have to climb all the way up from the bottom floor just to check it out. As a general rule of thumb, bathroom sinks should have filter holes small enough not to let these creepers pass through from the pipelines, and food should never be left outside for long enough to start rotting. In addition, garbage of any kind should be disposed as often as once every other day.
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