I went back to trying out a text book because there were surprisingly few books on cockroaches. In fact, something I learned from this book is that there is surprisingly little research on cockroaches. A numerous and diverse group of insects, most research seems to be on the pest varieties and how to kill them.

This book by the late William J. Bell and Louis M. Roth and continued by Christine A. Nalepa isn’t as long as what you might expect regarding such interesting insects, but it is thorough. It’s even funny. Though the number of jokes decreased as number on the pages increased, I did have some laughs, and they helped get me hooked. What I found most fascinating was that after so much study of ants, cockroaches surprised me thoroughly by being the group that produced termites. They do the entire colony thing very differently from ants, having kings and queens together. Termites were basically small cockroach families that found security and food digging into wood and found ways to expand. I won’t ruin it all, but they basically took normal features of cockroaches and adapted either in behavior or in physiology in rather simple ways. Once you understand them, you’ll be surprised anyone could think termites aren’t cockroaches!

Other interesting aspects of cockroaches include mating where males often provide a sweet snack on their backs to entice females to come close. They don’t always mate, but it does help. And after they mate, the females of some species give birth to live baby roaches! They may even carry these babies around on their bodies. Female cockroaches can be wonderful mothers. Just don’t call your mom a roach and tell her it’s a compliment.

In conclusion, it’s a text book. Not lengthy, but still a text book, so you have to be prepared for that. The narrative books of Heinrich or Ackerman have advantages in readability, but a systematic approach is also an advantage. I still kill any cockroaches in my home, but I am fascinated by them more.