Cockroaches hungry to mate don’t have it easy. Since glucose has been used in cockroach traps, females have become increasingly choosy about courtship gifts. However, we won’t get rid of the unwanted bugs anytime soon.
As a study published by North Carolina State University on Wednesday suggests, one shouldn’t be too hasty in celebrating the pest’s extinction. Because some males have adapted to the new mating conditions – including by shortening their foreplay.
Rebellious plague
The small but stubborn German cockroach is the most common cockroach species worldwide; Similar animals crawl around the world in bathrooms and kitchens. Humans responded to this with sugary traps that were set up with glucose, ie fructose. As early as 30 years ago, researchers noticed that cockroaches developed an aversion to it.
Glucose is no longer the “burner”
This aversion to glucose may save cockroaches from death — but it also puts a damper on their sex life: According to the study, published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, male cockroaches perform a very special maneuver to persuade women .
They raise their wings and release their mating gift through a gland – an attractive cocktail that includes maltose, ie maltose. The female then jumps onto the male’s back to lick up the treat – distracted long enough for the male to mate.
However, the saliva of female cockroaches breaks down maltose into glucose. Females that have developed an aversion to glucose then abort mating prematurely — which, according to the study, “could affect the future reproduction of the species.”
Another panacea was needed
However, men with an aversion to glucose have found a way around this problem. They just mix their mating cocktail differently: they more than doubled the amount of maltotriose, another sugar. Maltotriose is very popular with female cockroaches and takes much longer to break down into glucose.
Necessity is the mother of ingenuity
The inventive males have also shortened their courtship ritual. This reduces the time it takes for their mating gift to be broken down into glucose. Glucose-averse male cockroaches now spend an average of 2.2 seconds on foreplay – almost twice that of normal male cockroaches. According to the study authors, the results of their research could help reduce cockroach infestations. Some researchers advise to stop using glucose in cockroach traps.
Source: Krone
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