Where Do Cockroach Give Birth?
WouterCockroaches have a two-part process for giving birth: inside and outside the body. A pregnant female cockroach carries an egg case for at least a month before depositing it in a suitable location. This can be a deep wall crevice, under a heavy appliance, or a cluttered cardboard box. Once fertilized, a cockroach’s egg case contains several tiny nymphs. These young roaches have a hard exoskeleton and require more space to breathe. They also need water.
A healthy female cockroach (Grophadorhina portentosa) can give birth to forty to sixty live nymphs during her first parturition. In addition, there are reports of cockroaches giving birth to virgins. This ‘hopeful monster’ was first described by Stephen Jay Gould.
Cockroaches have a symbiotic relationship with bacteroids, which live in special cells in their fat body tissue. They are passed on from generation to generation via a thin coating on eggs. Bacteriaoids provide all the essential nutrients for a cockroach’s life, except for choline and cholesterol. After the symbiont dies, termites must obtain these essential nutrients from their food.
Most cockroach species live for about a year. Female German cockroaches live between 160 and 450 days and leave behind as many as 200 or 300 offspring. A single female German cockroach will lay between eight and thirty eggs in her lifetime. The egg cases are about eight millimeters long and turn black within a few days.
