Did you know?
- Headless cockroaches are able to survive for 3-4 weeks.
- After moulting, cockroaches turn completely white. Their new exoskeleton is built up within 8 hours.
- One of the favourite items on the menu of cockroaches is the glue on envelopes and stems.
- Ants have the biggest relative brain size among insects.
- Ants workers may survive up top 7 years and the queen may live as long as 15 years.
- The huge eyes of flies are composed of 4000 lenses, so they are able to perceive motion very well.
- Flies are able to smell their food from distances up to 6-700m. They are only able to consume liquid food, so first they spit saliva on food items.
- An average trashcan, if not emptied in time, may provide growing medium for as many as 30.000 flies in a few weeks.
- Mosquitoes are able to sense the presence of their hosts from more than 20m.
- Bedbugs are able to suck 7 times their body weight in blood (it is equivalent to someone drinking 400 litters of water)
- When frozen, fleas may survive for more than a year.
- A pair of mice is able to consume as much as 2kg of food in half a year while producing 18.000 droppings.
- Rats are very keen on cleanness, they spend one third of their lives grooming.
- Rats survive longer without water than camels. They will fearlessly dive from heights of 15m.
- The tail of rats serves the purposes of balancing, communication and controlling body temperature. The memory of rats is excellent, they are able to accurately remember routes they have taken before.
- Rats and mice are unable to vomit, so they keep tasting food without swallowing until they get convinced it is harmless.
- A pair of mice may produce as many as 2000 pups a year.
- Mice eat at several locations, but just a little at each, to avoid potential poisoning.
- Rats walk along the walls.
- If a rat wants to reach its food, it can chew through 15cm of wood within a day.
- Rats are able to adapt to their food. Town rats would not be able to survive on a wheat field.
- German cockroaches are often called "Russian" in Germany and "Polish" in Russia.
- The haemolymph of cockroaches is white.
- A cockroach can hold its breath for as long as 40 minutes.
- Cockroaches are able to survive 100 times higher doses of harmful radiation than man.
- Cockroaches carry at least 30 types of infectious diseases. They elicit allergic reactions in at least 7-8 % of people.
