One out of every four living creatures on the planet is a beetle. Let that sink into your brain that has been long taught that humans overpower and subdue the Earth and everything on it. One of the most infamous, quickly multiplying, and common of beetles is the cockroach of which there are also many varieties. Billions, if not trillions, of dollars are spent on exterminating these creatures that seem almost undefeatable.
The much hated pest has a very long history. The oldest cockroach fossil ever found dates back to 350 million years ago, which predates the earliest known dinosaurs by approximately 150 million years. As you may know if you have ever unwillingly lived with them, cockroaches do not die easily and it is nearly impossible to rid them from a house or building once they have begun to colonize it. Cockroaches are also the only living beings that can successfully survive nuclear blasts.
Not only are these bugs known for their immense ability to survive and their extreme strength, with the ability to bite 50 times more than its body weight, studies have revealed that these insects actually have consciousness.
“Groups decide collectively on where to feed and shelter, and there’s evidence of sophisticated communication, via chemical signals rather than dances. When kept in isolation, individual roaches develop behavioral disorders; they possess rich spatial memories, which they use to navigate; and they might even recognize group members on an individual basis,” said Brandon Keim as he explored the cockroach consciousness concept in an article for Aeon Magazine.
There currently isn’t a mass amount of information in the field of cockroach consciousness, but it is believed that their level of cognitive function is less on scale of that of a human but more comparative with that of a honeybee. Humans possess 100,000,000,000 brain cells whereas a cockroach has nearly 1,000,000 brain cells. It is the current scientific consensus that many living beings, including humans and cockroaches alike, descended from a common simple life form called the urbilateria that lived around 600 million to 1 billion years ago. It is very possible the roaches and many other life forms developed consciousness from the urbilateria as we humans did.
They have been here longer than we have, will most likely be here unchanged long after we are gone, and outnumber us many times over. Are cockroaches the pests or are we? Do we have a right to exterminate them? Does might make right? Stay curious.
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