Off With Their Heads
If you’ve ever tried killing a cockroach, then you know what it means to be frustrated.
Not only are the creepy, disgusting, disease-carrying critters quick and dodgy, they’re pretty sturdy and unyielding as well. Not even cutting off their heads will do any good at least, not for about another month.
If a human head is to be severed, the poor victim will instantly bleed t death. Not so with cockroaches since they are built very differently. They do not have the same degree of blood pressure as we do. So if their heads were cut off, they wouldn’t have to worry about their blood oozing and their bodies drying up. Neither do they require their heads to breathe. Cockroaches have what are called spiracles, a cluster of tiny holes found on their sides. These holes lead to thin branching tubes, which then carry oxygen to the rest of the insect’s anatomy.
What use are their heads then? that’s where the eyes, mouth, and antennae are attached. Without its head, a cockroach can’t see, eat, smell, and drink. Without its head, it definitely won’t bleed to death nor suffocate, but after a few weeks, it will eventually give in to starvation or dehydration.
sources: Reader’s Digest, August 2003
http://yucky.kids.discovery.com/noflash/roaches/pg00214.html
