How Cockroaches Fit Through Small Spaces
WouterCockroaches have incredibly tiny bodies and are able to squeeze through very small spaces. Their flexible exoskeletons and long legs enable them to fit through gaps a quarter of their length! They can even fit through drains and small plug holes. However, their size limits make them incredibly hard to capture and eliminate from a home or business.
Researchers at the University of California Berkley have developed a robotic cockroach called CRAM. It has been designed to fit through small spaces without losing any of its functions. Its shell can be compressed to fit through narrow gaps and it crawls on other parts of its legs instead of its feet.
Cockroaches are much smaller than we think. The average male cockroach can fit through a space as small as three millimeters. This means that a cockroach infestation can be difficult to contain. And since male cockroaches are much smaller than females, they can fit through even smaller spaces. They can fit through a hole that’s just one tenth of their height, according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In order to fit through such small spaces, cockroaches flatten their bodies by forty-to-60 percent of their size. This allows them to move from one side of a small space to the other side in just 300 to 800 milliseconds.
The speed at which cockroaches can squeeze through small spaces has been studied for several decades. The American cockroach, which is typically about 12 millimeters long, can fit through gaps as small as three millimeters. The compression of its body results in a three-millimeter gap that’s about one-tenth as wide as the roach’s body.
