Annoying cockroaches (the dangers and prevention methods of cockroaches)

Cockroaches, also known as cockroaches, sweet lady, slippery bugs... are all kinds of insects in various shapes and forms, and their official name is cockroaches. This is a global insect that is widely distributed in the five continents and four oceans of the world, and is especially prolific in the tropics. They can be found everywhere in our country…. The body of the cockroach is flat, brown, brown-black, brown, or yellowish-brown, with a metallic luster. There are two slender tentacles in front of the head, which emit bursts of unpleasant odor.

I. The dangers of cockroaches

Usually, in addition to setting up camp and stealing food in homes, canteens, hotels, hospitals, warehouses, and shops, cockroaches mostly appear in fields, forests, factories, farms and pastures, and even ocean-going ships, warships, and airports, damaging trees, corn, and sugar cane. , livestock and poultry... dozens of agricultural and forestry crops, cloth, clothing, groceries, etc., causing economic losses to humans.

Cockroaches feed on dozens of household foods. Particularly fond of starch, sugar, vegetables, and foods with high humidity. In addition, it also likes to eat dozens of Chinese medicinal materials such as Poria, chrysanthemum, and angelica, feces, phlegm juice, and the corpses of rotting small animals are also its delicacies. When you are really helpless, you can chew the paste on the edge of the book and bite the pages; even the refill of the red and blue pencil can temporarily satisfy your hunger and sustain your life. In addition, they often bite off clothes, get into radios and televisions, bite off the coverings of wires, and even bite the nails and eyelashes of babies. They often excrete a lot of dirty feces in places where they have crawled and fed, leaving behind disgusting The stench. Hence the hatred among people.

Cockroaches are the spreaders of many human diseases. Cockroaches are known to carry more than a dozen epidemic bacteria such as typhoid bacilli and dysentery bacilli. According to reports, each cockroach can contain up to 13,370 bacteria in its antennae, feet and stomach. In addition, cockroaches also carry human parasite eggs such as hookworms, roundworms, and flagellates. They can contaminate food and spread diseases through contact, feeding, and excretion of feces. In recent years, there are rumors at home and abroad that the feces of the American giant cockroach has carcinogenic effects.

However, it is worth mentioning that although cockroaches as a whole are enemies of mankind. But there are also types in its camp that are beneficial to people. We must protect and use them. For example, there is a type of cockroach called "Chinese true ground turtle". Its female is the famous Chinese medicine "earth turtle". It is salty in taste, cold in nature and poisonous. It has the effect of breaking blood, removing gangrene and dispersing knots. It is mainly used to treat blood stagnation, amenorrhea and bruises. sick. There are monographs on such species at home and abroad, and they are raised by specialized units or households.

As a sanitary pest, cockroaches are very harmful to humans. Health organizations and epidemic prevention departments in many countries in the world regard them as objects to be eliminated, and invest a lot of manpower, material resources, and financial resources in their classification, living habits, and environment. Research on ecology, prevention and utilization, etc.

II. Types of cockroaches

Most people think that all cockroaches they see are one kind. In fact, there are no less than 10,000 species of cockroaches in the world. More than 6,000 of them have been studied by scientists and have scientific names. There are more than 200 species recorded in our country. Cockroaches, although there are so many types, are so widely distributed. But the cockroaches that are closely related to human livelihood are probably mainly cockroaches that live indoors. As for indoor cockroaches, as early as 1095, Li Shizhen had such a record: "Today, there are very many under the wall stove of people's homes, and some even gather into hundreds. Their bodies are like silkworm moths, with red belly and back, two wings that can fly, and they like light." , its smell is very smelly.” If you observe carefully, you will find indoor cockroaches, some big and small, some with long wings and some with short wings. The large and broad pronotum covering the head and chest, some are pitch black, and some are black. There are two vertical brown bands on the top, some of which form patterns and patterns, and some of which are uneven... All these marks clearly indicate that they are not the same species. Therefore, their external forms are very different and not the same. Current research points out that there are dozens of species of indoor cockroaches. Different parts of our country are different. The most common ones are: American giant cockroach, black-breasted giant cockroach, Australian giant cockroach, Japanese giant cockroach, spotted cockroach and German small cockroach.

III. Long history

Looking at the family tree of cockroaches, we will be surprised to find the family history of cockroaches. According to American scientists who used C14 to test two cockroach fossils, they determined that they are 300 million years old. What a long time it has been! At that time, dinosaurs had not yet appeared, but cockroaches were already subjects of the earth. They had experienced the vicissitudes of the world and fought tenaciously with nature to survive. What is even more unbelievable is that the cockroaches 300 million years ago are so similar in shape to the cockroaches that exist today, and the mutation is so weak. It makes people sigh: How tenacious the cockroach is! No wonder it has It is known as "insect living fossil".

IV. Biological learning ability

A cockroach completes a life cycle from egg to nymph to adult, which usually takes half a year to more than four years. Although indoor cockroaches have wings, they are not very good at flying. Perhaps in order to escape capture when stealing, they have developed three pairs of "scuds" and are very good at running and crawling. If there were a race in the world of insects, they would definitely dominate the competition and win the gold medal.

They are probably ashamed of their shameful sneaking behavior. They are always afraid of the light. They live in seclusion during the day and hide in dark corners, such as on the walls of sewers, around kitchen stoves, between boxes and wood, in clothes, in the pages of books... and only come out at night. Groups come out to move around and get food. Interestingly, their eggs are laid in a leathery egg sheath, which is shaped like an old lentil and often has ring patterns on it if you look closely. There are a dozen to dozens of eggs in this carefully crafted tent. Usually the female can lay fourteen or five oothecae in her lifetime. Some "mothers" are deeply afraid that their children will be invaded by foreign enemies before they hatch, so they always hang the egg sheaths at the end of their abdomen for two or three weeks, until the egg mass inside is about to hatch into a nymph. It is placed in a carefully selected safe and comfortable place, allowing them to come to the world and travel alone in the world.

V. Prevention and Control of Indoor Cockroaches

Indoor cockroaches breed quickly and in large numbers. They are found in almost every household in the South. People often complain about them and seek a magic bullet to get rid of them. In the long-term struggle against cockroaches, humans have accumulated some effective prevention and control measures, which can be summarized in the following aspects:

(1) Eliminate the source of insects: prevent the spread of cockroaches, especially ootheca.

(2) Artificial killing: Taking advantage of cockroaches’ nocturnal activity habits, turn on the lights at certain intervals between 9 and 11 pm, the peak period of cockroach activity, or use a flashlight to illuminate the cockroaches and swat them with fly swatters. During the day, you can also combine cleaning and hygiene by cleaning gutters and toilets, catching cockroaches in cabinets, drawers and other furniture, paying special attention to searching for ootheca, burning them intensively, and removing them by the roots.

(3) Trapping: Mix foods that cockroaches like to eat, such as soybean meal, flour, etc., with the pesticide trichlorfon in a ratio of 10:1 to make bait, and place it in places where cockroaches often hang out to poison them after eating. die.

(4) Spray: Use chemical agents, such as pyrethroid liquid, "Bee Killer" produced by Shanghai United Chemical Factory, etc., indoors for a certain period of time to spray indoors. The effect of killing cockroaches is significant.

(5) Other methods: such as blocking wall cracks where cockroaches hide, trapping with sticky paper, scalding, smoking, etc. It can also achieve certain prevention and control effects.

animal tags： cockroach pest control damage