How many cockroaches hatch from one egg? We will consider this issue further in our material. In the meantime, let's find out what the eggs of such insects actually are.
They hatch from the so-called ooteca. The latter is an egg storage in the form of a cocoon, which is covered with a rather pliable chitinous shell. Ootheca develops in the body of the female cockroach. Under favorable conditions, several dozen eggs can form in such a cocoon.
After the insect embryos mature, the ootheca separates from the female’s body. The egg storage shell hardens quite quickly and transforms into a reliable protective capsule. Such a container for larvae protects the offspring of cockroaches from the effects of a number of unfavorable environmental factors.
Before finding out how many cockroaches hatch from one egg, let's consider what morphological differences the oothecae of certain types of household pests have:
So we come to the question of how many eggs can be contained in one clutch? Individual species of cockroaches produce different numbers of offspring:
How many cockroaches hatch from one egg (ootheca) largely depends on the availability of favorable conditions for the life of young individuals. Females can carry cocoons with embryos for 2 to 6 months. In the presence of a too dry environment, lack of food, various types of irradiation, chemical influences, and other negative factors, the female may shed her oedema prematurely. In this case, not all larvae will survive. Some of them will not hatch at all or will be born underdeveloped.
So we found out how many cockroaches hatch from one egg in different species. Now let's look at what happens to young individuals after leaving the ooteca.
Cockroach larvae are called nymphs. They differ from adult individuals only in their translucent body structure, modest size, and inability to reproduce. Nymphs may appear white for several days. This is where the misconceptions about the existence of a separate species of pale mutated cockroaches came from.
Different people show the following care for their offspring:
In the material presented, we looked at how many cockroaches hatch from an egg. A photo of this process can be seen above.
Upon reaching the last stage of development, domestic cockroaches become capable of reproduction. The process begins with finding a partner to mate with. In order to find and attract a suitable partner, females secrete a special odorous secretion. This was made possible thanks to the glands located in the back of the body. In addition, they can also use their own wings to attract a male by flapping them slightly.
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After a partner is found, the female and male begin to mate. Fertilization of the female occurs with the help of the genital plate, which is located at the very end of the male’s body. After mating is completed, the partners separate: the male continues to be active, and the female prepares for parenthood.
After a certain amount of time, the females lay eggs. One normal oviposition can contain from 20 to 60 larvae. To bear small insects, the female has a special compartment in the form of a leathery sac - an ootheca. It will store the embryos as long as they require protection. It is noteworthy that females carry this capsule-shaped bag with them for quite a long time - until the embryos are sufficiently formed. It is clearly visible to the naked eye, since most of it extends beyond the female’s abdomen. As soon as the babies have grown a little and become stronger, the female sheds the ootheca in a dark, secluded place and leaves, leaving the embryos to their own devices.
They are designed by wise nature in such a way that, taking little, they give a lot. And therefore it is indestructible. You can only reduce its population.
Amazingly generous with the population. Judge for yourself. Do you know how many cockroaches are born from one egg?
15-50 individuals hatch from one clutch at a time. A female is capable of laying 10 clutches or more. It turns out that one individual is capable of producing at least one hundred offspring. And they won’t sit still either - they will continue to breed cockroaches. How to win this? Maybe selectively kill females?
This is what domestic representatives do - (Prussians) and (such as crickets). But those that live in nature - Madagascar, for example - their males can hiss and butt with their horns in order to get a female.
Girls have wings only for decoration - they can wave them a little, showing their readiness to mate.
Type of development of cockroaches - incomplete conversion cycle, that is, it skips the pupal stage.
These figures may be higher - it all depends on living conditions. The more nourishing, warmer and humid, the more intense the reproduction of domestic cockroaches.
They flapped their wings and mated. Then the fun begins. The female lays eggs.
She does not lay these eggs just anywhere, but in a special capsule - swelling.
This is a leathery pouch that quite reliably protects the eggs from damage and the vicissitudes of the external environment.
The female will keep this pouch with her - behind the body. This swelling looks like a tail and is popularly called “tail”. The female carries the edema with her everywhere and does not throw it anywhere. And it is freed from it only when the larvae are ready to emerge.
If you see such a “tailed one,” then you know that he is the most dangerous for your home. Because when dying, the female manages to shed her “tail” - she shoots it straight out, catapults it. And she herself, perhaps, will die, but the “tail” will not.
The time for childbirth will come, and somewhere, under the baseboard, 30 little baby cockroaches will crawl out, completely independent and viable. And you lost this little battle again.
It is not difficult to distinguish a nymph from an adult. The larval nymph is smaller in size and has not yet developed wings., and it is darker in color. The larva molts 5-6 times during its growth and sheds its old shell. The closer the nymph is in age to the mature individual, the lighter it becomes, turning from almost black to red.
Nymphs live in a colony with adults and eat the same food. They behave exactly the same, only they do not mate.
10 interesting features that make them incredibly durable:
Fact. The red cockroach is the leader in the fight against the black one:
In the photo below you can see the appearance of cockroaches at different stages of development:
This photo shows cockroach eggs:
Here is a photo of a cockroach larva:
And below you can see a photo of a baby cockroach, the so-called nymph:
In order to prevent cockroaches from reproducing, you need to deprive them of the main thing that they love.
Their hordes do not give a person peace, they make the walls of the house move, they swarm in all corners. People say something similar with a certain degree of hostility and fear about cockroaches, which have long lived side by side with them. Figurative expressions help to clearly imagine how cockroaches reproduce, ignoring the persistent attempts of the owner to get rid of them and showing incredible fertility.
The frantic speed of increase in the number of individuals, the ability to appear like a bolt from the blue, their invulnerability to the effects of many poisons and even radiation amazes the imagination, terrifies and becomes a reason for jokes.
“Red-haired and mustachioed” can boast that he is the main character of many literary works, although most often negative.
When it comes to not the most pleasant representatives of the Arthropod type, sensitive people shrug their shoulders in disgust. Those whose apartments are not threatened by the proliferation of cockroaches will turn away indifferently. And only a few can talk with delight for hours about the gracefulness of insects. One could admire the extraordinary agility of these special specimens from the world of fauna, if not for the historical enmity between Homo sapiens and cockroaches.
Scientists claim that the ancestors of cockroaches existed already during the Paleozoic era and safely survived all the global changes on Earth. They preferred the climate of tropical forests. It was there that ideal conditions developed for cockroach relatives, lovers of warmth and moisture.
Man learned to build houses, providing all-season comfort for himself and his smaller brothers - cockroaches. Insects have taken a liking to buildings; there is always food and protection from natural disasters. They willingly occupied a niche next to humans, turning into synanthropes, which significantly increased their ability to bear offspring.
The timid, fussy creatures captured in photographs are not particularly attractive, and when cockroaches begin to actively reproduce, it becomes unbearable. In the old days, no one even thought of fighting cockroaches; they had to be tolerated. The presence of such parasites in the hut was considered a sign of prosperity. Where the owners are in poverty, and the cockroaches have nothing to eat.
The Russian Emperor Peter I felt a strong dislike for such uninvited guests, and at the same time for the owners who allowed insects to multiply in their hut.
Insignificant, at first glance, creatures play a certain role in the life of human society. In previous centuries, hardly anyone could boast of a complete absence of insects in the house.
One famous baker, fleeing the righteous wrath of the Governor-General, passed off a cockroach baked in a bun as a raisin. The insects in his kitchen became so bold that, while rummaging around the secluded corners like a master, they ended up in a vat of dough. This is how, due to cockroach curiosity, banal uncleanliness and the resourcefulness of a baker, raisin buns appeared.
The better people equipped their homes, the more zealously cockroaches mastered them, the population grew rapidly, but humanity also became more irreconcilable. Multi-storey construction is well received by insects. Plumbing is the greatest achievement of civilization. Leaking pipes and heating radiators are simply a paradise for cockroaches accustomed to heat and dampness.
And cockroaches have long appreciated the careless attitude of people towards products. And no matter how much responsible tenants break their spears, defending their rights to living space in the fight against pathetic boogers, there will always be those who want to profit at someone else’s expense.
Having such roommates is a dubious pleasure, but it’s not so bad. The multiplied cockroaches encroach on shoes, books and the holy of holies - household appliances, but such “citizens” cannot be dragged to court. From time to time, researchers find new shortcomings in the crawling brethren, declaring them to be the culprit in the development of bronchial asthma and the carrier of pathogens of a number of unpleasant diseases. The above leads to a final break in the already strained relationship between man and cockroaches.
Domestic cockroaches, like typical representatives of their class, reproduce sexually. A specialist can easily distinguish a male from a female. A real interest in the breeding of these animals and their sexual characteristics is shown by biologists and terraiumists who are passionate about exotics. The poor fellow, who involuntarily became the owner of an army of cockroaches, does not run after them with a magnifying glass, eager to determine what sex the individuals have multiplied on his territory.
The cockroach suborder is characterized by enormous species diversity. Most of the species that are most familiar to the Russian eye have the following features:
See also our experiments on cockroaches:
We catch cockroaches and test different products on them - see the results...
Female cockroaches are able to lightly flap their wings to invite them to mate, the initial stage of the reproductive process. Males are ready for feats for this: some are able to fly up a little, Madagascar hissing cockroaches make threatening sounds and butt with “horns”. They stage real battles, proving their rights to the female.
After fertilization, the female lays eggs. As a rule, they have a protective capsule - edema.
The changes that occur in the structure of insects during life are called metamorphosis. Cockroaches are characterized by an incomplete type of transformation: larvae emerge from the eggs, they undergo several moults, each subsequent larva more and more reminiscent of an adult, an imago.
Throughout her life, the female lays eggs several times. There is also an interesting feature: after mating, the male’s gametes are stored for a long time in the female’s body, repeated clutches occur even without previous copulation.
The bulk of insects living in the home are larvae that have not reached sexual maturity.
Insects have gained a lot from living together next to people. Houses and apartments are reliably protected from adverse weather conditions, households are generously supplied with provisions, which allows cockroaches to multiply very quickly and exist comfortably.
Let me introduce you, a popular runner in modern Russian kitchens is the red cockroach, so named because of its color. Blattella germanica – that’s what zoologists call it. He also has a lot of nicknames. One of them, the Prusak, reflects the history of the adventures of this annoying animal. It is believed that he, an African by origin, was brought to Russia in his knapsacks and overcoats by soldiers returning home after the war with Prussia.
The Germans, on the contrary, are convinced that the cockroach came to Europe from Russia, and in western Germany it is called French. He visited everywhere. He managed to win the competition with the black cockroach, thanks to the fact that he reaches sexual maturity faster, is more fertile and takes care of his offspring longer, and also from time to time feeds on the eggs of the black cockroach, often abandoned to fate.
The female Prussian carries the swelling with her everywhere and leaves it only at the moment when the larvae are fully mature and ready to emerge.
The development of a cockroach from egg to adult stage takes about four months. At a sufficiently high ambient temperature, it is ready for mating after 3 months.
During the period of maturity, which lasts up to 30 weeks, one individual is capable of giving birth to at least a hundred children. The reproduction of the ubiquitous red cockroaches is limited only by a lack of water and food.
In the last decade, or maybe a little more, residents of apartment buildings have been amazed at the absence of cockroaches, their eternal dependents, in their kitchens. Has the chemistry finally worked? Or at the same time, all the neighbors became extremely clean, the taps stopped leaking, and all the cockroaches ran away in search of food and drink? Unlikely.
Scientists were seriously alarmed by their unexpected disappearance. Versions are put forward, one more incredible than the other. Someone claims that too many things that insects consider unpalatable have appeared in our apartments. They were not comfortable with genetically modified products, mysterious dyes and preservatives, to which people had already become accustomed.
They didn’t like the smell of linoleum or the lack of old books with glued pages in the cabinets. They were killed by cellular communications or the destroyed ozone layer, and they fell victims of civilization.
Did they suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs? Hardly. Cockroaches have repeatedly proven their ability to adapt to the most unfavorable conditions. If they can withstand ionizing radiation, can high-frequency radio waves harm them? The Prusak can go without food for up to 20 days; would he really not be able to endure temporary difficulties?
You shouldn’t flatter yourself with the hope that bipeds emerged victorious in the battle with cockroaches. There is no doubt that they will return to our homes. They will put up with a modified human diet, try synthetic floor coverings, and cause damage to plastic. And these individuals that survive the struggle for existence will be more difficult to deal with. They may have become stronger, more cunning, more agile.
So, a new stage in the battle against cockroaches is probably ahead of us, the fight against their mass reproduction on our territory.
The oothecae, or capsules for storing eggs, appear to be very fragile. However, it is not. From a biological point of view, oothecae are similar to the shells of bird eggs. They allow air to pass through equally, which makes the life of the larva completely safe. An adult insect cannot tolerate temperatures above 45° and below -5°. However, the ootheca also protects the developing individual from sharper temperature fluctuations.
How much does the capsule weigh? How many individuals can appear from one egg laying? The specifics of the formation of ootheca and the timing of maturation of eggs in it depend on the type of pest. Thus:
How long does it take for larvae to form? The duration of their development is determined by living conditions. Typically this process lasts from a month to two and a half months. If the room is warm, formation proceeds quickly, without delays or problems. However, at low temperatures, development slows down, but the embryos remain viable. After the onset of comfortable conditions, the development of young individuals resumes.
Usually all insects leave the offspring at one time. At the beginning of life, cockroaches are white and microscopic in size. However, chitin quickly hardens, and the color of the cover becomes the same as that of adult individuals. It is necessary to combat the “offspring” of the pest immediately using a boron solution.
Video instructions for creating a simple and effective cockroach trap.
Cockroaches strive to leave behind as many offspring as possible from one egg laying. Therefore, insects usually deposit oothecae in hard-to-reach places. For example, in the pantry, ventilation system, under the sink, in furniture, behind and under baseboards.
Having discovered “barbels” in an apartment, simply destroying them is not enough. Indeed, in the near future the population will be completely restored due to the hatched individuals. Therefore, you also need to look for capsules and destroy them.
Mass reproduction of longhorned beetles can be prevented by reducing food and water for them. You can also temporarily reduce the temperature in the apartment.
You also need to use all available methods of exterminating cockroaches. Both folk remedies and special chemicals will be used.
Having information about how pests reproduce and how many of them appear as a result, you can fight cockroaches more effectively.
The video describes the lifestyle of cockroaches and how to fight them.
