CLASSROOM PROJECTS
  HISSING COCKROACHES
pair
Click on the photo to hear a cockroach hissing.
Our Hissing Cockroaches
 Links
The Madagascar hissing cockroach is no ordinary roach. It can grow to up to 3 inches long and over an inch wide. This type of cockroach is clean, odorless, sanitary, docile and harmless. They do not bite.
The hissing cockroach is unique for the sound it makes. The hissing noise can be heard during mating rituals, aggression between males or when an adult male, adult female or nymph are handled or disturbed in some way. Sometimes they will hiss for no apparent reason.
Research studies have shown that males can tell each other apart by hissing. Females are attracted to the tone and strength of a male’s hiss. Unlike most other insects, the hissing is created by forcing air through a pair of breathing pores located in the abdomen. Most other insects make sound by rubbing body parts together, like crickets. Females are ovoviparous, that is, they give birth to live young. The female carries the egg and neonate nymphs for approximately 60 days until they emerge as first instar nymphs. One female can produce as many as 30-60 nymphs. This insect has an incomplete life cycle: egg, nymphs and adult stage. The nymphs undergo 6 molts before reaching maturity in 7 months.
Hissing cockroaches enjoy a rather large range of diet. They thrive on dog food, rat chow, as well as fruits and vegetables. They are also long-lived for insects. They can live up to 5 years.
male head  
This is a male cockroach.  Males have little horns on their heads. A female has a smooth head .
Our Hissing Cockroaches
 
We have about  20 cockroaches of various sizes.  One day one of the cockroaches molted.   Mrs. Gray let us feel the molted exoskeleton
cage
exoskeleton
Exoskeleton

Mrs.Gray bought four adult hissing cockroaches (2 males and 2 females) in April 2005.  One of the female cockroaches had about 20 babies on October 31, 2005. Click on the links below to view pictures of the babies as they grew. On March 25, 2006 one of the adult males died.  It appears he had a fight with the other adult male. On March 30, 2006 one of the adult females gave birth to about 20 new babies.  Since then Mrs. Gray's cockroaches have had several batches of babies.  She now has eight  large cases of cockroaches of various sizes.
cockroaches
The First Four Cockroaches

Fact #1: Cockroaches can run up to three miles per hour.
Fact #2: Roaches can live without food for one month, but will only survive a week without water.
Fact #3: Crushed cockroaches can be applied to a stinging wound to relieve pain.
Fact #4: A cockroach can live for a week without its head. The roach dies because it cannot take in water.
Fact #5: Cockroaches pass gas every fifteen minutes.
Fact #6: A cockroach's blood is white.
Fact #7: The world's largest roach (from South America) is six inches long and has a one-foot wingspan.
Fact #8: Cockroaches can hold their breath for 40 minutes.
Fact #9: Roaches live an average of two to five years.
Fact #10: Roaches that have just shed their skin are white.
Fact #11: Hissing cockroaches cannot bite. The only protection they have is their unique hissing sound.
Fact #12: A female usually gets pregnant only once and she will stay that way for the rest of her life.

LINKS
 University of Kentucky Entomology , Madagascar Hissing Cockroach
http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts/misc/ef014.htm
The Hissing Cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa (Schaum)
http://www.key-net.net/users/swb/pet_arthropod/hiss.htm
University of South Carolina Roach Camera
http://cricket.biol.sc.edu/usc-roach-cam.html
Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches
http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/insectsspiders/p/hissingroach.htm
Giant Hissing Cockroaches FAQ
http://www.angelfire.com/in/ghcfaq/
Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches
http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/foss/fossweb/teachers/materials/plantanimal/hissingcockroaches.html

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Updated 06/12/07