A Slight Hiss

I think the cockroaches are a bit cold at school, but it is warmer (and safer) than my house. They haven't been moving around very much, but when I carry them around to show the students, the cockroaches become more willing to move around their habitat, occasionally hissing.

Ricky and Sticky gathered together in the cardboard tube, I'm not sure what their purpose in being so close was, I was hoping they were going to start fighting. Although they would occasionally crawl over/around one another, they didn't instigate any fighting.

At School

The cockroaches have been pretty sluggish the past few days. They have been staying in a 5th grade classroom. One of them has just been laying in the toilet paper tube and the other is laying in the middle of the habitat, although when he first came to school he was on the side of the box near the lid. It looked as though he was trying to escape.

The fifth-graders are all intrigued by him, hopefully tomorrow we will have some time to explore with these invertebrates.

A Final Goodbye

So this is the final post that I will be writing about the cockroaches. Because of the practicum, we haven't been able to switch the cockroaches for a while but tomorrow the big day arrives. As weird as it is, I am sad to see them go. I have worried over them and their diet and swollen little bodies, I have enjoyed watching them fight and then avoid each other and I think most importantly have loved being able to scare my roommates with them. This week as I have observed the cockroaches I have noticed that they haven't been eating very much. I have given them the choice of apples, strawberries--a couple of times, and grapes. I have shied away from the bananas (ever since the incident). I am worried about this because I read online that male cockroaches will become cannibalistic if they don't eat anything. Now I'm not saying that I believe this-- it was online-- but I don't really want it to happen. So hopefully they will eat something soon.
So about the music and the cockroaches. I have noticed that they really like explosions and violence. After watching certain movies, they tend to move more. For example, a couple of my roommates have been watching the series Burn Notice and they seem to enjoy it as well. If we are going to watch a movie we will sometimes put the cockroaches right in front of the tv or by the speakers. We will then observe their behavior after the movie has finished and USUALLY they move a little more. Now this is not always true it is pretty interesting. Another theory is that they like the dark and so move more when it is dark. Whatever it is, its pretty entertaining to watch. We will continue to investigate this during our experiment and I'm excited to see what happens.

A Continuation of the Swollen Cockroach Problem

So I have been legitimately worried about these little guys. After placing the bananas in their cage I have noticed that they have been really puffy and by really puffy I mean weird looking. Usually the cockroaches are not my favorite thing to look at but they look so fat and swollen. As I look at them I think it must hurt! Their backsides are really yellow and all of their stripes are exaggerated. As i looked closer at the cockroaches I realized that something clear was coming out of their back end. I figured that it must be feces and was very surprised by this. It looked like maybe the cockroaches had constipation... is that possible? I was especially surprised by the color-clearish and then as it dried it turned brown. This problem was present for days on end and I worried a little about them. I took the bananas out and let the cockroaches just work on their digestive systems for a couple of days. They continued to work on it and after about 5 days started to look better. I added a couple of apple slices and continued to monitor their eating habits and behavior. They have been moving a little more this week and so I was happy about that.
Now about our experiment. We have decided to talk about the effect of music on the cockroaches and this has been really fun for me. I love to listen to music and listen to a large variety and so the cockroaches have been treated to a diet of jazz, pop, classical, opera, and country. The cockroaches always seem to move a little more when there is some type of sound-- I have noticed this even when the tv is on or we are watching a movie. After the sounds stops, the cockroaches seem to be more active and seem to fight a little more than usual.
I'm glad that the cockroaches are starting to look better and hope that our experiments will turn out good!

Puffy Cockroaches?

So I have inherited the cockroaches-- much to my roommate's excitement. They have been very sluggish and I have been a little bit worried about their health. I think it might be we are still in the middle of the winter but unfortunately I can't take the cockroaches to Hawaii. So...we decided to put them close to the heater, add a cotton ball with water and hope for a humid climate. After observing them for a couple of hours I noticed that they were still extremely sluggish but decided that maybe they were just tired from the fun weeks they had been having. There were a few apple pieces in the box but they didn't seem to be eating them. I've noticed that the cockroaches have been simply sitting in the toilet paper roll and haven't been coming out very much. I cleaned the cage and dampened the paper towel that was in the cage.
So about the puffy cockroach... Because the cockroaches hadn't been eating the apples, I decided to try a banana. I had researched on line a little bit and so towards the end of the week, decided to put in a couple slices for them to try. I noticed over the next couple days that the cockroaches had become a little puffy...I thought this was strange and tried to research a little bit about it online but couldn't find anything. I guess we will just have to see what happens, I will continue to monitor the cockroaches and see how they do.

Does Music/ Sound affect the cockroaches?

After the Music has stopped...

More Music...

Breathing for Cockroaches

I have taken the advice of the other peeps in my group that Ricky and Sticky like warm, humid environments. Therefore, I put a little bit of water in their box, and I stuck their box on the heater vent in my room. When I came back from an activity, they were both up and moving around a lot around the box- more than I had ever seen.

Previously I had noticed that their abdomens contracted and expanded at regular intervals, which I assumed to be breathing. It turns out that I was right- it is a form of breathing; however, I decided to look up a little bit more about the whole breathing process for the cockroaches when I heard a little *squeak* sound coming from them when they exhaled (similar to the one our noses make when they are a little stuffed). Here is what I discovered:

"Q21: Ajay writes:
Could You please let me know how do cockroaches breath?

A: Ajay,
Cockroaches, like all insects, breathe through a system of tubes called tracheae, a word similar to the name of the tube leading to our lungs. The tracheae of insects are attached to the spiracles which are small valved openings on the side of each body segment, excluding the head. Thus the cockroach can breathe without its head! The valves open when the CO₂ level in the insect rises to an unacceptable level; then the CO₂ diffuses out of the tracheae to the outside and fresh oxygen diffuses in. The tracheal system brings the air directly to cells because they branch continually like a tree until their finest divisions tracheoles are associated with each cell allowing gaseous oxygen to disolve in the cytoplasm lying across the fine cuticle lining of the tracheole. CO₂ diffuses out of the cell into the tracheole.

Most insects do not have muscular lungs and thus do not actively breathe in the vertebrate lung manner. However in some very large insects the diffusion process may not be sufficient to provide oxygen at the necessary rate and body musculature may contract rhythmically to forceably move air out and in the spiracles and one can actually call this breathing. This might be associated with such activities as the energetic flight of the migratory locust."

info from: http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html#Q21

A music update: Sticky (the more active, brown colored one) appears to be a little upset with loud noises. He raises and inflates his abdomen when loud music is playing. Sticky (the less active, golden colored one) mostly just hides out in the egg carton.