Essays 

Cockroaches, considered the filth bearers of our society, the creatures that roam in the night and scutter below the floorboards deserve more credit than is given. I want to prove that there is more to learn from them than meets the eye.

Long ago I held my mothers hand as she led me into a big auditorium teeming with people walking about and chatting before the presentation. Sitting down with my legs folded below me, I notice the faint smell of fresh soil and a tinge of sweetness I could not place. My mom smiles with a finger before her lips signaling that we must quiet down. An announcer comes onto the stage about college age with high waisted chalky pants, a forest green polo tucked in and an endearing tan hat. 

“Welcome everybody to the traveling insect circus! “ Another one clad in the same outfit jokingly whispers in her ear, “Oh my it seems as though I’ve come to the wrong event,” she says.

 “We are the insect zoo, or insectarium from Iowa state!”, they joined in unison. I was transfixed. 

Over the span of an hour they displayed the slender praying mantis, the curious walking stick, and the graceful monarch butterfly amongst many others. The two weaved around the crowd with the creatures crawling up their arms, showing each child up close. After they tipped the monarch back into its netted enclosure, they raised their arms dramatically as if they were monsters of the night stomping through the rainforests. As some children around me shrunk back unto their mothers with worried eyes, I leaned up onto my knees to see what they were about to reveal. The first announcer’s hat tipped forward while she made a deep hissing sound. ‘A snake?’ I thought, intrigued. 

“And next up we have the Madagascar hissing cockroach!” the second announcer beamed. The children that had leaned back were now clutching their mothers while the mothers in turn had a look of disgust painted on their face. Quite literally half the audience was clutching their pearls. At this time I understood that cockroaches were mostly considered to be insects that were undesirable pests. I had never before even considered that they would be able to be display worthy. The only thing that kept my nose from shriveling in that moment was the thought about where they came from; Madagascar. Madagascar is an island on the coast of Africa filled to the brim with diverse wildlife many of which can not be found anywhere else in the world. To me these cockroaches must’ve had something special about them from this quasi-magical realm from far away. “Does anyone dare to touch the hissing cockroach?” She boomed, likely expecting none to answer. I stood up with such enthusiasm it surprised both announcers, especially considering the context in which my enthusiasm sprang. “Well, it looks like we have a volunteer!” 

Walking up to the tank I see the little bugs tumbling over one another and begin to regret my decision. I now know what the slight fruity smell was coming from, as the cockroaches viciously decimate a tub of old strawberries. “Well? Roll up your sleeves!” she says while grinning widely, having seen my nervousness. I squint at her and defiantly plunge my hand into the enclosure, wrist deep in strawberries and cockroaches. I heard a searing hissssssss sound seeping out of the tank. 

I burst into glorious laughter. “It tickles!” They snatch my arm out of the tank and brush the cockroaches off and I can’t keep myself from the uncontrollable nature of my heaving, bright red, face of joy. 

“You weren't supposed to do that! We were going to put just one on your arm, you are one fearless little girl!” When I went to sit down, I stared awestruck at my own strawberry stained hands relishing in the experience. ‘I hadn’t been fearless’ I thought. ‘But I did it anyway.’

When the performance was over I skipped over to the tank of cockroaches intoxicated by my newfound obsession. When my mom told me I couldn’t have a whole tank full of cockroaches as a pet, I was heartbroken. I just couldn’t understand why she didn’t want hissing cockroaches in an old house with four cats that knock things over constantly. Dejected, I slumped back home missing my newfound friends. 

Cockroaches are not just the pests that many believe them to be. Misunderstood, many wish that they didn’t exist at all, that they should fade into obscurity. It is a good thing that Cockroaches are long outlasting all of us despite our efforts to eradicate the creature. Without them, many of our waste systems would collapse and our world would be matted in a layer of detritus. The cockroach, although unassuming, is likely more ecologically important than our own race, the homo sapiens. The extinction of the cockroach would likely signify the end of life on earth as we know it. The extinction of the human race however would at first be detrimental but overtime could even be beneficial to ecosystems across the globe.

 “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” E.O Wilson. 

Although this is in reference to all insects as a whole, I believe that it is applicable to our lovely cockroaches. All things considered however, I don’t love cockroaches for their amazing decomposition abilities, I love them for their existence that forces me to ask the important physiological question, what gives one the right to kill another being? Cockroaches can be frustrating and difficult to get rid of, but does that mean that when one comes across the cockroach in the wild or outside of their own home that they should stomp it out? What I assumed was going to be a disgusting awful feeling when I was up in front of the crowd about to plunge my hand into a pit of cockroaches, was actually a ticklish intriguing sensation that left me with a new interest! There was truly nothing to be afraid of as cockroaches don’t even bite or sting. Although I actually do love cockroaches, especially the cave roaches of Madagascar, you don’t have to love the insect in order to appreciate it and leave it alone. Many people have a hard time empathising with a creature they deem as disgusting as disgust can be much more difficult to curb than fear. Disgust is such a powerful tool that it can be used against our fellow human beings in order to account for terrible mistreatment of one another. If one can learn to understand the inside workings of a scuttling creature that they have a hard time being in the same room with, maybe interacting with other people that we deem less than tolerable can be easier. 

To hate or dislike something does not justify its eradication. The cockroach whether you like it or not will continue to exist, so why choose to absolutely hate its existence. The cockroach is one of many insects that people bring up when I say I want to become an entomologist, along with fleas, flies, and mosquitos. How could you ever love insects when these few have caused so much strife to people around the world. To that I say how can you love the bird when it has killed so many cockroaches, how can you love the cat who has murdered so many song birds, how can you love the person who has abandoned many a cat. We are all a part of a worldwide ecosystem where someone is always more or less off depending on where you are situated. No cockroach has ever had an evil intention within themselves unless one can prove to me otherwise. Do they live within our homes as unwanted visitors on occasion, yes but only to survive themselves. My choice of whether or not to be a meat eater, to swat a mosquito sucking at my arm or to catch cockroaches and put them out of my house is in a way all of the same. As a member of my ecosystem as we all are, I have the right to eat my fill, to prevent myself from disease, and to protect my home from invaders. This does not mean that I in fact must hate all other species that hinder my existence as they all have the same wants and needs that I do. The cockroach has shown me to love all aspects of the natural world as they have grown out of the same random generator of evolution that I have. 

All living beings are inextricably connected so next time you consider squashing a cockroach  minding its own business, think about the bird who starved that sings at your window every morning, and the local stray cat you pet every afternoon who went hungry because there were less birds in the sky.

Sources:

SAMYN, JEANETTE. “Louis Figuier, John Ruskin, and the Value of Insects.” NineteenthCentury Literature, vol. 71, no. 1, 2016, pp. 89–114. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26377151, https://doi.org/10.2307/26377151.

---. “Why We Hate Insects.” The Paris Review, 3 June 2014, www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/06/03/swat-with-scruple/.