For prehistoric pests, cockroaches—German cockroaches (Blattella germanica), in particular—have been notoriously great at propagating their species all over the world, utilizing the shelter of man-made structures to survive all types of inclement weather. These cockroaches have been found in human dwellings on every continent aside from Antarctica.

Although German cockroaches are inherently hearty insects that have survived ice ages, rogue meteors, and mass extinctions, they’re also beginning to survive present-day pest control treatment methods—making them even more difficult to contain than most other pests.

So, how do we go about finding German cockroach kryptonite if they’re becoming immune to even the most advanced treatments? To better understand how to get rid of German cockroaches, let’s take a closer look at their life cycle, reproductive process, and eating habits in the modern world.

The German Cockroach Life Cycle

With three distinct life stages—egg, nymph, and adult—German cockroaches go through incomplete metamorphosis (where early stages of development look like tiny versions of an adult) and complete their entire life cycle in about 100 days. However, the exact timeline of the German cockroach life cycle depends on environmental factors such as climate, access to food, and various strain differences.

German cockroaches are excellent breeders, continuously producing offspring into their multi-generational, isolated groups if no intervention takes place. When populations are actively growing, the group consists of nearly 80 percent nymphs (newborn roaches) and 20 percent adults.

Reproduction Cycle

After a male and female German cockroach mate, the female will carry her eggs in an egg case on her lower abdomen (scientifically known as the ootheca, these egg sacs can hold 30 to 48 eggs) right up until hatch occurs—helping to optimize offspring birth location while keeping larvae and nymphs away from danger.

During the transition of a nymph becoming an adult, roaches will molt—meaning they will shed their exoskeleton (exuviae) roughly six times. After each molt, the roach will appear bright white and be particularly susceptible to injury until a hormone called bursicon causes the exoskeleton to darken and harden. The period between each molt is called an instar.

Physical Characteristics of the German Cockroach

Adult German cockroaches measure 10 to 15 mm long, are brown to dark brown, and feature two distinct parallel bands running the length of the pronotum (the plate-like structure that covers their thorax).

Male German cockroaches feature:

• Thin, slender body shapes
• Tapered posterior abdomen
• Visible terminal segments in the abdomen
• Not covered by tegmina (leathery outer wings)

Female German cockroaches feature:

• Stout body shapes
• Rounded posterior abdomen
• Entire abdomen covered by tegmina

German cockroaches draw in air through holes in their sides called spiracles, have colorless blood due to not using hemoglobin to carry oxygen and store their fat in one centralized location called the fat body.

What Do German Cockroaches Eat?

Roaches have a very unique digestive system that allows them to eat practically anything. From bread and meat to furniture glue and book bindings, roaches are omnivores with specialized internal modifications that allow them to eat cellulose and other tough materials along with human food.

In their digestive tract, they have a section called a crop that holds swallowed food until the proventriculus—a toothy section of the tract—can break down the food. After the initial breakdown, gastric caeca sacs digest food even further with the use of enzymes and microbes—making it easier for German cockroaches to consume dense material like cellulose.

Where Do German Cockroaches Live?

Residential Homes & Multi-Family Communities

You might think roaches only infest dirty homes, but that myth has been debunked! While it’s true that a lack of readily available food will prevent extreme breeding from happening, German roaches can infest even the cleanest homes that feature moist, warm areas.

The safe, predictable indoors is much more hospitable to German roaches than the harsh outdoors. If there’s a way in, a roach population will be more than happy to make themselves welcome.

Two rooms are particularly susceptible to roaches in residential areas: kitchens and bathrooms. Kitchens are great sources of food and home to plenty of warm, dark corners (like behind the fridge condenser and underneath the stove). Bathrooms are usually the wettest rooms in the house, so roaches are perfectly fine hanging out there, too.

Businesses

Restaurants, hotels, and rental properties are the three businesses most often infested by roaches, as they are easy targets for nutritious meals and ample warm nooks. Service businesses that don’t practice satisfactory sanitation are most prone, but roaches are tough creatures that can make their way to clean businesses, as well.

Other areas of businesses that roaches like to infest include:

• Salons
• Break rooms
• Food processing plants

Non-service businesses are also vulnerable. Roaches can hitch a ride with employees or in shipments with cardboard boxes or paper sacks, which are favorite hiding places for these insects. And because roaches can multiply quickly, offices and high-rises certainly aren’t immune to an infestation, either.

How Are Cockroaches Harmful to Humans?

It’s commonly known that rodents and mosquitoes carry disease, but cockroaches are equally dangerous in this regard—not to mention they don’t smell great due to using cuticular hydrocarbons to communicate. Roaches can carry bacteria and viruses on their bodies and spread disease via their droppings.

Some of these diseases include:

• Cholera
• Dysentery
• Salmonellosis
• E. Coli
• Leprosy
• Plague

Although cockroaches won’t directly contaminate you with a disease, a population of roaches—particularly roaches that come in contact with bacteria from sewers, latrines, or drains—can quickly contaminate large swaths of your house or business. This is problematic because they don’t even need to be in sight for their diseases to reach you.

Molting or Decaying Roaches Are Respiratory Nightmares

During molting or death, roaches pose a significant health risk to humans of all ages due to the makeup of their exuviae. Roaches’ exoskeleton is made up of a protein called chitin (a fibrous substance consisting of polysaccharides that form the exoskeleton of arthropods), which eventually breaks down and becomes airborne.

This protein is an allergen for many, causing dermatitis, itching, swelling of the eyelids, a runny nose, rashes, and other severe allergic reactions. Furthermore, exposure to chitin from cockroaches has been linked to the development of asthma in children.

Additionally, roaches emit yet another foul stench when they die: oleic acid. These fatty acids cause a “stench of death” that notifies the entire group to stay far away from the death site—but these smells are also off-putting to humans.

How German Cockroaches Are Inching Toward Invincibility

German cockroaches can survive without their heads for weeks, hold their breath for 5-7 minutes, and withstand 10 times more nuclear radiation than a human—so it comes as no surprise that they’re growing immunity to modern pesticides used to control their tight-knit populations. Scientific reports have recently stated that controlling German cockroaches with traditional treatments alone will be nearly impossible soon.

Since the 1950s, German cockroaches have been developing resistance to every insecticide class introduced. This immunity is developed within cockroaches due to their closed populations facilitating rapid evolution for high-level resistance. While German cockroach baits were once the answer to fight against roach pesticide immunities, these indomitable insects are also developing a physiological resistance to common traps.

Sugar Baits Aren’t So Sweet Anymore

When baits were first introduced to cockroach populations, they were laden with sugar, as roaches are attracted to glucose and need it to promote growth, energy, and reproduction. German cockroaches caught on to these traps and developed an adaptive behavioral aversion to glucose, signaling their taste neurons to react negatively when ingesting sugar baits.

How To Prevent Roaches from Infesting Your Property

While you’re probably looking up flights to the South Pole’s roach-free tundra now, there are plenty of ways to learn how to get rid of German cockroaches—both on your own and with professional help:

Sanitation, Sanitation, Sanitation

The single best thing you can do to combat roaches is sanitation. Yes, roaches can eat lots of things, but if there isn’t ready access to food in your home or business, it will be very difficult or impossible to maintain a strong population.

Cleaning Your Restaurant

If you’re cleaning a restaurant, make sure not to hose down the floors at the end of a shift, as this excessive moisture sitting overnight can attract German cockroaches from all angles. Additionally, ensure your staff is properly discarding leftover food material in sealed containers or bins.

Close Off Outside Entrances to Your Home or Building

Even if your home or business is perfectly clean, roaches could enter if there’s a way in from the outside. Do some investigating—and caulking work—to close any potential entry points around your property while ensuring there are no leaky pipes or areas with excessive moisture.

How To Get Rid of German Cockroaches with Lloyd

If roaches crawling around your Southern California property is driving you up the wall, let the professionals at Lloyd Pest Control step in and help. Lloyd proudly uses sustainable roach control tactics that feature the lowest toxicity levels possible.

In many cases, our low-impact gel baiting—specifically designed to target roaches with behavioral aversions to outdated formulas—works excellently to eradicate German cockroaches. As adult roaches venture out to forage food for their nymphs, they will pick up the bait and bring it back to their aggregation area, which ensures all roaches present consume the material.

To deploy our baits in the correct areas, our team will set up sticky traps (monitors) in notable roach hotspots that contain high heat levels, moisture, and food sources—continuously monitoring traffic to ensure roach populations are dwindling.

Don’t delay on roach control; contact Lloyd Pest Control today to learn how to get rid of German cockroaches!

The post Invincible Insects: How To Get Rid of German Cockroaches first appeared on Lloyd Pest Control.

Some ants protect their nests with their heads

Aside from being able to carry objects 50 times their own body weight, ants display another behavior that is quite spectacular. head to protect its colony from unwanted guests.

Ants use to live alongside the dinosaurs over 130 million years ago. Fossilized evidence of ants and other insects have been found in lumps of amber, or plant resin.

Termites are less dirty than you might think

Termites, though they can be disastrous to your home, are actually a benefit to the environment. Termites are vital to earth’s decomposition of tough plant fibers. But that’s not what’s so cool about these pests.

Much of a termite’s life is spent cleaning other termites in the colony!

Bacteria and fungal infections can make quick work of termite colonies, which is why they spend such a great deal of time grooming each other to keep the colony clean. A termite’s antennae enable the termite to detect infections while they clean.

Bed bugs hide before you know they’ve bitten you

Over the past few years bed bugs have grown as a menace throughout Southern California and the entire country.

Bed bugs inject anti-coagulants and anesthetics into your skin so they can feed and hide before you even know they are around. The bed bug’s saliva acts as an anesthetic thus masking the bite and increasing the speed of the feeding process.

Spiders limbs work like that of a machine

While it’s true that almost every spider in the world is venomous, most spiders teeth are either too small or lack the potency of venom to harm people. But it’s not just the fangs and the venom that scare people. Spiders have a strange way of moving, which, as it turns out isn’t that different, mechanically speaking, than the more familiar movement of a common construction site excavator.

Spiders can control blood pressure in their limbs using a combination of hemolymph (arthropod blood) and extensor muscles located in the three hip joints, which allows them to move, and even jump in the case of jumping spiders.

Bees will create a new queen from existing larvae

Often, the only silver lining to a bee sting is the assumed knowledge that after a single sting, the bee dies.  The truth, however, is that honeybees don’t always die after stinging something. A bee stinger may become caught in a human’s skin but many other surfaces anima skins are more forgiving and will endure multiple stings without harm to the bee itself.

But despite all this seemingly violent behavior, bees are extraordinarily community driven. As a queen bee dies, she emits a pheromone that will cause worker bees to immediately create a new queen from existing larvae.

Fleas and brushes have something in common

Your dog or cat may disagree, but the flea is quite a magnificent creature. Not only can a flea jump 8-10 inches vertically (making it one of the best jumpers of any animal, relative to body size), and not only can the flea’s hard body withstand incredible pressure, but the common flea is in some ways similar to the common hair.

 The flea’s body is covered with hard plates called Sclerites. In the same why that a hair brush is designed to easily part the hair on your head, the flea’s hard body plates (called Sclerites) have hairs that point away from its head allowing it to easily crawl through your dog or cat’s fur.

Cockroaches just want to be loved…sort of

You may know that cockroaches can live for weeks without their heads, but did you know that they like to be touched? Cockroaches are thigmotropic, which means they like solid objects coming in contact with their bodies.

Despite how interesting these pests may be, they can be damaging to our home and health. That’s where Lloyd Pest Control comes in. Our elimination service covers Southern California with more than 200 radio-dispatched trucks, 200 licensed technicians, supervisors, a Quality Control staff, an entomologist, and a biologist. For more information about each of these pests and their eradication, contact Lloyd Pest Control today at 1.800.223.2847.

The post 7 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Pests first appeared on Lloyd Pest Control.

It turns out that the cockroach’s ability to keep upright has nothing to do with the neural makeup of their brains, as it does in most other creatures, but rather relies on the physical architecture of their legs! That’s right; it’s the shape of the cockroach leg that allows it to keep the cockroach upright. Furthermore, a cockroach can navigate throughout its surroundings WITHOUT THINKING.

I don’t know about you, but this knowledge makes them even creepier.

As ABC Science points out, this knowledge goes beyond simply making our nightmares more nightmarish. The understanding of cockroach mobility might help robotics engineers develop more efficient robots: “one of the recurring challenges of designing a mobile robot is writing an algorithm that keeps it from falling over.” By bypassing the need for a robot “brain” and this complex balance algorithm, building a feasible self-reliant robot may become reality….wait, I’ve seen this movie. STOP THE ROBOT PROGRAM!

ABS Science also mentions the potential for this knowledge to help humans, too. Human mobility – how we walk upright – is still a bit of a mystery. Despite how easy our two-legged motion is, the neural processes that allow us that motion are quite complex. Understanding how the architecture of a leg on a cockroach may potentially help us to develop more reliable prosthetics and perhaps better therapies for people with brain injuries. So, I guess, CONTINUE THE ROBOT PROGRAM!

The post Did You Know: Cockroaches Don’t Use Their Brains to Keep Balance? first appeared on Lloyd Pest Control.

A new reality TV show on AMC, “Immortalized,” aims to showcase the creative side of taxidermy. One contestant in particular, Petaluma, California entomologist Kevin Clarke, takes taxidermy to level most of us have likely never considered: insects on motorcycles (hilariously titled “Weevil Knievel”).

While most people have heard of butterfly preservation, the preservation and articulation of other insects may come as a surprise. For Clarke however, the interest seems to have been with him since childhood:

I was very cruel to bugs when I was little. I had this dissecting table, and I would sit and poke at them with pine needles. Play doctor.

Who can blame him, though? We were all mean to insects when we were children. That seemingly inborn animosity for most of use carries throughout our lives, but some, like Clarke, adopt a different perspective.

Clarke’s work, which can be seen at BugUnderGlass.com, runs the gamut from whimsical to educational but remain consistently, dare we say, aesthetically beautiful.

But as beautiful as some insects can be, it’s important that insect and other bugs are controlled to prevent residential infestations. Once bugs – along with the diseases they carry and damage they cause – breech the perimeter of our homes, we must take serious action. That’s where Lloyd Pest Control comes into play. Call us for all of your Southern California pest control needs. Or, if you have some amazing Kevin Clarke specimens to show off, call us and invite us on a tour!

Call now! 1. (855) 533-8022

The post Beetles Riding Skateboards and Playing Banjos? first appeared on Lloyd Pest Control.