We calmly go into the kitchen, turn on the light and no longer see the cockroaches timidly scattering in different directions. Everything around the trash can is also “clean”. We are used to quietly leaving an open packet of cookies or a sandwich on the table.
By the way, the younger generation may not even know what cockroaches look like. So, carriers of various microbes no longer poison our lives. It would be nice to live here and be happy, but for some reason people don’t enjoy freedom.
Can a person feel safe in houses from which even the insects have escaped?
Where did the cockroaches go from Russian apartments? The answer will surprise you!
Mobile phones, computers and microwave ovens
It is believed that cockroaches are afraid of radiation from mobile phones, computers and microwave ovens. And it is completely justified.
Over the past 10-15 years, the above devices have become part of our lives. Apartments and offices are full of various equipment. When it works, an electromagnetic field is generated in the room. It creates unfavorable living conditions for the Prussians.
Scientists are still discussing the effects of radio frequencies on animals and humans. Every year there is more and more evidence that they have a negative impact. Perhaps this is why sensitive cockroaches disappeared from high-rise buildings.
By the way, for some reason there are no Prussians in those areas where the old GPRS and GSM standards work, that is, in Russia and in most neighboring countries.
Version No. 10: from the realm of fantasy
Along with scientists, ufologists also deal with the issue of the disappearance of cockroaches and put forward their own versions of this fact.
- They classify cockroaches as space spies;
- For several centuries, cockroaches, representing an unearthly race, lived in close proximity to humans and pretended to be mindless creatures;
- They were present on Earth for the purpose of collecting the necessary information about the inhabitants of our planet;
- When the information was collected, the space spies returned to their homeland, which explains their disappearance of their apartments.
Food
Yes, we really have problems with food. GMOs and additives are what people use to destroy themselves. Some say that GMOs and modern food do not pose any danger, while some scientists insist that after several generations a person will not be able to reproduce healthy offspring.
Large-scale experiments on human intervention in the genetic code have brought disappointing conclusions. Scientists are confident that the Prussians disappeared due to regular food poisoning from the human table.
But there is a slight discrepancy here. Why are cockroaches not averse to settling in food warehouses? After all, the same products are there.
Active use of poisons
Where did the cockroaches go in the late 90s? During that period, the collapse of the Soviet Union occurred. Goods from China poured into independent countries. The Prussians were one of the main problems of the Russians. Therefore, dusts and crayons with a toxic composition became a real find. Before this, instant poison was used. Substances with a delayed effect have replaced them. The insect poisons itself, carries the poison to the nest and feeds the others. Gradually everyone dies. It’s interesting that the products were really effective, but few people were interested in the composition at that time. They smeared the baseboards, doors, walls with crayons and did not worry at all about where the cockroaches had gone. Gradually, the products disappeared from store shelves and now completely different insecticides are in use.
Poison and insecticide
Perhaps the cockroaches were scared of the Chinese poison. Although unlikely, if you remember the nineties. At first the insects disappeared, but then they adapted to the poison and returned again. Although it is quite possible that the current poison is much more effective than the previous one.
Since science does not stand still, man has managed to create really strong insecticides. And this is a really serious blow to the Prussians (unlike the traditional poison that we use ourselves). By turning to disinfectants, you can be sure that uninvited guests will leave the walls of your home for a long time.
Museum
In the US state of Texas, the owner of a pest control store, Michael Bodan, has created an unusual museum where dozens of species of cockroaches are presented, donated from different people.
Well, a museum may be a strong word, but they have a Hall of Fame in the city of Plano (Texas, USA). Who came up with the idea of combining vile parasites with a museum exhibition? Oddly enough, the owner of a small store selling insect control products - a certain Michael Bodan.
A passionate lover of cockroaches, he took care of the posthumous fate of his “crumbs.” He places dried cockroach mummies in different interiors, arranges houses and cradles for them, makes beach hammocks, umbrellas, sun loungers... Visitors can admire Russian surfers, Russian musicians and even the “Statue of Cockroach Liberty”.
Is it possible to admire the sight of dead cockroaches? It turned out that it was still possible! Especially if you dress them up in suits. Thus, viewers are invariably delighted by the sexy cockroach “Marilyn Monroe” and touched by the mustachioed “Elvis Presley” in a white tailcoat with rhinestones.
One of the exhibits was created by an 85-year-old woman who dressed an insect in a mink coat and placed it behind a tiny piano. The composition is named “Liberouti”, in honor of his idol, the famous American pianist.
Construction Materials
Another theory says that cockroaches do not like the synthetic building materials used in modern apartments.
Maybe there is some truth in this? Nowadays, few people have enough finances to make repairs using natural materials. Synthetic ones are cheaper and are often much more practical.
However, this has not been proven. So why did cockroaches disappear from apartments?
Construction materials
It's no secret that if the neighbors start renovations, the Prussians scatter all over the house. And then they don’t appear in the renovated apartments for a long time. The insects did not like the smell of oil paint and modern materials. Not everyone can afford natural ingredients. The design of modern apartments is crammed with plastic and synthetics. The specific smell is almost imperceptible to humans. But the insects could not stand it. Where have the cockroaches gone from modern homes? In unfurnished apartments with wooden frames on the windows and without European renovation.
Natural selection
There is an opinion that cockroaches lost the war with a stronger enemy. Perhaps they were forced out of Russian apartments by pharaoh ants, which are distinguished by their tenacity.
By the way, the disappearance of the Prussians worried scientists so much that there was a proposal to include them in the Red Book. Can you imagine?
But biologists and scientists can understand - cockroaches managed to survive in any conditions for millions of years! They learned to adapt to the poisons that people poisoned them with. So what happened to them now?
Version No. 4: unknown epidemic
Entomologists - scientists who study insects - believe that the depopulation of cockroaches is associated with the negative impact of some kind of infection on them. Scientists have found that certain types of fungi and bacteria can lead to the death of Prussians. In some cases, the chitinous cover of the pests becomes covered with brown and dark brown spots, a moldy coating appears on the abdomen, and the limbs of the insects begin to break off.
Other bacteria lead to infection and death for parasites.
Under the influence of other fungi, females prematurely shed their ootheca, which prevents insect larvae from emerging from there.
Purity
Now newspapers from the trash can have been replaced by garbage bags. This “cuts off” the cockroaches’ access to food. According to research, people have begun to clean more often.
But the most important thing, according to scientists, is the aggressive household chemicals used by apartment residents. Perhaps it was she who contributed to the disappearance of the Prussians.
But here again something doesn’t add up! In fact, these insects will always find food for themselves. If there is no access to food, they can feed on soap, glue and microscopic particles of human skin that settle on floors and objects.
Let's assume that cockroaches have no opportunity to eat at all! It's not a problem. Adults can easily go without food for 30 days, and their larvae can go as long as 70.
Cockroach with jetpack
Even though people for the most part do not like cockroaches, we must admit: these are extremely important animals and they have always been so. Yes, they, regardless of their desire, tolerate allergens and pathogens of various diseases. But at the same time, cockroaches serve as an important link in food chains: they eat and decompose things that other insects rarely take on. In addition, cockroaches gave rise to termites, which was discovered relatively recently, in 2007.
Scientists from the UK determined the relationship between cockroaches and termites by analyzing a number of genes. Judging by the results of their research, the ancestors of termites were some cockroaches (not red ones!), capable of feeding on wood due to special bacteria in the intestines. Termites have become more social than their cockroach grandfathers. Actually, this is where the main differences between the two groups of insects end.
Due to their size, cockroaches serve as a convenient object for biomechanical research. Here are a couple of examples. In 2002, a scientific article was published, the authors of which studied stabilization in cockroaches of the species Blaberus discoidalis. They glued miniature guns to the backs of insects and forced them to walk under slow-motion cameras. At some point, the cannon fired a short (10 millisecond) shot to the right or left, powerful for its size, designed to destabilize the cockroach and drop it on its side. However, the insects did not turn over and returned to their previous trajectory of movement at the next step.
Having measured the reaction speed of cockroaches, the researchers came to the conclusion that stabilization of their position in space is provided here not even by the nervous system (it cannot work so quickly), but by the mechanics of the limbs.
In 2016, a new study was released in which the authors describe how the movement of cockroaches in very tight spaces inspired them to create a soft robot to search for earthquake victims.
Russian scientists also did not stand aside. Although, as we found out, they were not interested in the disappearance of red cockroaches from apartments, domestic luminaries of science and technology created a robot based on their knowledge of the Blaberus giganteus insect. According to the designers, employees of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, they were faced with the task of making the robot as cockroach-morphic as possible. It seems that it worked.
The robotic cockroach will scare those who are afraid of real insects: its length is 10 centimeters. It runs a third of a meter in a second, so it’s difficult for a person to catch it. Like foreign designers, Kaliningrad scientists believe that their development can be used as a means of searching for objects in hard-to-reach places.
A little mysticism
But lovers of everything mysterious and mystical are sure that the disappearance of cockroaches is a bad omen!
This has already happened - cockroaches disappeared before disasters, for example, before a pestilence, fires or war. And if this is so, then the world will face global cataclysms and many more troubles.
But if you think about it, cockroaches disappeared about 10 years ago, and fortunately we are alive. Maybe this statement should be ignored?
GMO
Since Prussians eat the same food as people, a logical question arises: what is so unusual about the food that people eat? It's simple. Genetically modified food products are increasingly appearing on store shelves. Theoretically, they should prevent people from starving to death in the event of a shortage of food, but their artificial composition is so harmful to the body that, ultimately, it can lead to human death.
Many studies have already been carried out, in particular in the field of genetically modified products from the agricultural sector, the results of which are not encouraging.
Even the loss of cockroaches is nothing compared to interference with genetics. According to scientists, the entire food chain suffers. From an insect that ate a product to a mammal that ate a bird that tasted a bug.
Just imagine how many generations will suffer while the benefits and harms of genetically modified foods are studied! This is the version: the cockroaches left after eating harmful foods, and they have no desire to return yet.
But what is it really like?
Disinfectors only smile sarcastically at all these attacks about the disappearance of cockroaches. They know that the insects did not even think about dying.
“Mustachioed guests” still settle in places where there is a lot of garbage and dirt. There are plenty of them in dormitories, garbage cans, and also in apartments where the owners are not concerned about cleaning and cleanliness.
And if you go down to the basement, you will be surprised at how vibrant life is in full swing there!
Although the number of sanitary treatments has indeed decreased in recent years, this does not mean that the Prussians have suffered in any way or gone extinct. They simply “moved” to calmer, quieter and damper places.
So don’t be surprised when you meet a “mustachioed neighbor” in your kitchen!
You can learn more about the reasons for the disappearance of cockroaches from Russian apartments from the video.
To be honest, we don’t miss having guests like this in our house! And you?
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Story
In the third century AD, there lived a young man named Tryphon in Asia Minor. More precisely, most likely, his name was pronounced somehow differently in his native language, but he was included in the Russian calendar under this “nickname.” Saint Tryphon, during his lifetime, successfully cast out demons, material and not so material. Once he healed the daughter of the Roman Emperor Gordian from the attacks of the devil, and another time he saved his village from hunger by driving out insects that were devastating the fields. For some time now, Orthodox Christians have been praying to the holy martyr Tryphon of Apamea for the destruction of cockroaches, mice and other pests.
Those who are not churchgoers or simply do not see the sin in witchcraft can use the following ritual against cockroaches:
“First of all, you will need to turn off all water taps and wipe dry all surfaces that come into contact with liquid (bathtubs, sinks, tables, etc.), and also remove from the room all liquid that insects can reach, exactly for a day. After sunset, open all the windows in the house or apartment and read the words of the conspiracy:
“I drive small creatures and all kinds of scum from my threshold to my window, from the window onto the dusty road that leads away from the house of my servant of God (name). The parasites will perish in the sand, they will perish in the taiga, they will die from the cold sea, from the dry wind. There is dryness on my table, there is dryness on my floor, there is no water for them, there is no life for them in my house. As it is said, so it will come true. Amen. Amen. Amen"."
All means of fighting cockroaches, including prayer and conspiracy, are psychologically better than nothing. However, if cockroaches moved into the houses of Europeans and their neighbors during the time of the martyr Tryphon, then they were definitely different from the current “cucaraches”. The fact is that initially black cockroaches, Blatta orientalis, lived in Asia and Europe. This is a fairly harmless animal, although it mainly lives in human homes and feeds on scraps. Our childhood friend, the red cockroach Blattella germanica, was brought to Europe from South Asia by Marco Polo himself.
Of course, it will not be possible to accurately establish the identity of the “cockroach importer”. But in any case, by the 18th century, this cockroach had spread throughout Europe so much that it was described by the great Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. It is interesting that in Russia the red cockroach has long been called the Prusak, and in Prussia the same species was called the Russian cockroach. Residents of both countries apparently believed that the annoying cockroaches were given to them by an enemy state during the Seven Years' War.
By the beginning of the 20th century, red cockroaches multiplied so much that they noticeably replaced the black ones. It is impossible to say exactly what this is connected with. We can only state that the Prussians turned out to be better adapted to life in Russian and many European homes. Maybe a number of genes allow them to better tolerate the relative dryness of human dwellings (remember the recommendations for the plot about removing the water!) or to feed more efficiently on the waste from the table of Homo sapiens.
Is there a crisis coming?
Some experts from different countries associate the disappearance with the economic crisis. In their opinion, the cockroaches left when they sensed the approaching crisis of 2008.
On a note
No matter how absurd this theory may seem, it still has some confirmation. Recently, a colony of cockroaches was discovered in the Indian state of Goa. This territory is absolutely not affected by financial crises and disasters. Insects feel great here. Apparently they moved there while our country copes with the crisis.
