For Your Consideration: The Incredible... Roach!

[Round, black-and-white spotted, beetle-looking insect crawls over a bright green leaf.]

[GENTLE FLUTE MUSIC]

JESSICA WARE (Curator, Division of Invertebrate Zoology): Oh hello? Who’s this cute little guy? Some adorable little spotted beetle? Nope. Surprise! It’s a cockroach! 

[MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY, MAN SHRIEKS]

[Jessica Ware speaks to camera in the American Museum of Natural History Insectarium hall. She is surrounded by exhibits on insects.]

WARE: I get it. Lots of us don’t like roaches. And a study funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service… 

[Quick shots of animals that people sometimes find hard to love—a bat, a rattlesnake, wasps, rats, and a mosquito sucking blood from a human.]

WARE: …found that the most hated animal in America was the cockroach. 

[A woman holds a glass cookie jar that also has a cockroach trapped inside. She grimaces.]

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: There’s even a name for the fear of roaches— katsaridaphobia. 

[A brown cockroach looks out, winningly(?), from behind bright green leaves. A beetle-like cockroach with elegant antenna sits in the petals of a chrysanthemum flower.]

WARE: Will no one love them? Maybe you just haven’t met the right roach.

[Montage of a variety of roaches that look very different to the ones people usually see in their homes—spotted roaches in leaf litter, a red roach on a flower, a lime green roach, one with iridescent, metallic coloration, and roaches with surprisingly beautiful color combinations.]

WARE: I’m here to tell you: roaches are amazing. There are red ones, green ones, metallic ones, even multi-colored ones. 

[Two roaches wiggle their antennae at each other.]

WARE: They have complicated social structures, can make different sounds with different meanings…

[A hissing cockroach performs its namesake buzzing HISS.]

[A brown, leaf-like mother cockroach sits on a green plant, surrounded by a number of small offspring.]

WARE: …and they’re some of the best parents in the insect world. (They will eat their young, but let’s not talk about that.) 

[Close up of Ware’s hand as she holds a small wood roach. The same type of roach scurries in wood chip debris on the forest floor.] 

WARE: More importantly for us humans, they have an important role to play in ecosystems around the world. But how? 

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: So, we might not love roaches… but the world needs them. So, stay with me and while you might not exactly fall in love with roaches, you’ll at least learn to appreciate them as six-legged frenemies.

[Camera tilts down and speedily zooms into Ware’s hands, where she holds two hissing cockroaches.]

[SMOOTH, JAZZY, ORGAN TUNE]

[A large, rotund roach slowly crawls across glass. The camera views it from below.]

[Title animation: INSECTARIUM]

[On-screen text: American Museum of Natural History]

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium. She holds two large, slow-moving roaches.]

DIRECTOR [off-camera]: Who do we have here?

WARE: This is Gromphadorhina portentosa, or the Madagascar hissing cockroach. 

DIRECTOR [off-camera]: It’s a little bigger than the ones that I have in my apartment. At least so far.

WARE: Well, more than 99% of cockroaches have never even seen a kitchen sink. 

[On-screen text: Jessica Ware, Ph.D. | Curator, American Museum of Natural History]

WARE: There’s over 7,000 species and the majority of cockroaches have actually lived their entire existence outside of the human condition, away from people, away from human dwellings. 

[Footage of various cockroach species, living in many different types of habitats: a sand-covered roach crawls in a desert-like environment, a small yellow-and-black roach scutters across a bright green leaf, a leaf-like roach sits in damp moss, etc.]

WARE: The rest of the world’s roaches live all over the place—in rainforest treetops, the edges of streams, and deep in caves—from the equator to northern latitudes. 

[A mottled roach perches on low green vegetation.]

[On-screen text: Ectobius lapponicus | dusky cockroach]

WARE: There’s even a species that ranges above the Arctic Circle.

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium. She stands next to a display showing a variety of pinned roach specimens.]

DIRECTOR [off-camera]: So, what I’m hearing is that there are a lot of roaches out there.

WARE: Yes, but they don’t all look like you might think. They’re actually incredibly diverse and many of them are really beautiful! 

[Shots of a variety of roaches that don’t look at all like the pest species many people are familiar with: a black-and-yellow roach, a blue roach, a roach sticking its long abdomen out of a succulent plant, etc.]

WARE: Among the world’s thousands of roach species, there are turquoise roaches, snorkeling roaches… 

[Microscope footage of single-celled organisms.]

WARE: …and roaches with the incredible alchemy of turning atmospheric nitrogen into nutrients.

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium. She holds hissing cockroaches.]

DIRECTOR [off-camera]: So, if they’re not climbing out of my drain, what are roaches doing with themselves?

WARE: Well, I mean, most cockroaches are kind of gregarious. 

[Two tan, mottled roaches touch each other with their legs and antennae.]

WARE: Some maintain bonds by mutual grooming and touching. And lots of them take care of their kids. 

[Ware stands in Insectarium, and indicates the hissing cockroaches she holds in her hands.]

WARE: In fact, these particular roaches, they actually will feed their young. 

[A view from below of a round mother roach crawling on glass. She carries about six of her offspring, attached to her underbelly.]

WARE: But in general, cockroaches are the largest group of insects that exhibit parental care. 

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

[On-screen text: Susan and Peter J. Solomon Family Insectarium | American Museum of Natural History]

DIRECTOR [off-camera]: Do they talk to one another?

WARE: Well, cockroaches can communicate. Often what they’re using are chemical communication. So, they have these really long antennae. 

[A cockroach meticulously cleans its long antennae with its mouthparts.]

WARE: If you’ve ever taken the time to sit and look at cockroaches, often a big part of what they’re doing in the day is actually cleaning their antennae. Cockroaches are actually really fastidious. 

[Ware speaks to camera as she walks through the Insectarium.]

WARE: Their chemosensory tools that they have in their antennae, these small sensory pits that can pick up different chemical cues—

[A cockroach perched in orange flower petals cleans its antenna.]

WARE: …those need to be really, really clean in order for them to be able to best communicate with each other.

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium, holding the hissing cockroaches.]

DIRECTOR [off-camera]: That’s intriguing, I won’t lie, but it’s gonna take a lot for people to love cockroaches. What else would make me like them?

WARE: Well, I mean, the world as we know it would look really different without cockroaches. We really need them because they’re an essential part of the nutrient cycle—

[Several shots of different types of forest environments—tropical rainforest, temperate forest, etc.]

WARE: …something that’s critical for healthy ecosystems. 

[Time-lapse footage of roaches scurrying through leaf litter on a forest floor.]

WARE: They’re like little sanitation workers—breaking down leaf litter and animal waste, and returning nutrients to the soil. 

[A bird and a lizard chow down on roaches.]

WARE: And they’re incredibly important as food for other animals! They may even be the single most important prey for small vertebrates like lizards and birds in tropical rainforests.

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium, standing near the exhibit on roaches.]

DIRECTOR [off-camera]: If roaches are so amazing, why are they so easy to hate?

WARE: Well, I mean, we tend to think of cockroaches, we tend to think of the really small number that are pest species. And there’s a few species in particular that tend to have adapted to live in and amongst human dwellings:

[In the background, an out-of-focus roach is trapped in a plastic container. In the foreground, illustrations and on-screen text show Periplaneta americana, the American cockroach, and the smaller Blattella germanica, the German cockroach.]

WARE: …the American cockroach and the German cockroach. 

[Various close-ups of pest species of cockroaches.] 

WARE: Those pests are so dependent on humans that at least the German cockroach no longer exists in the wild. This is bad for us because pest species can have big impacts on our health. 

[A child breathes into a respirator in a hospital setting.]

WARE: They’re well-established as a significant source of severe asthma for many people.

[Ware and another researcher, both dressed in coats and gloves, walk through a forest in winter. They examine large pieces of decaying wood]

WARE: Dr. Megan Wilson is an entomologist who now focuses on pest management. Her job involves getting rid of roaches in places where they can be a nuisance or harmful to people, but she’s really fascinated with their biology. So, we went out to the woods to see if we could find some roaches in the wild!

[Ware uses a crowbar and a knife to pry up pieces of rotten wood, looking for roaches.]

WARE: I’m surprised it’s not a more common pastime.

[Ware and Wilson talk in the woods.]

WARE: So, in your experience in pest management, like what- what are some of the things that people tell you that really freak them out about cockroaches?

[On-screen text: Megan Wilson, Ph.D. | Entomologist / Field Supervisor]

MEGAN WILSON (Entomologist, Field Supervisor): Flying. They don't like how they run. They don’t like how they scuttle, and on top of it, too, like there’s kind of a stigma with them.

WARE: Because people fear, like, if you have roaches, then people think that you are unclean or that you've done something wrong. 

[Ware and Wilson talk while looking for roaches in a fallen tree stump.]

WARE: My mom actually, she lives in northern Ontario and she found a cockroach, and she freaked out. And I was like, “Girl, this is like a tiny Ontario wood roach.” But she just only associates them from TV and movies as being like something a New Yorker would have in their apartment, so she was really panicked. And I just reminded her that there’s like cockroaches all around her in those woods. And they live outside of the human condition. They're like, not part of our story.

[PLUCKING STRING MUSIC]

[Ware and Wilson roll back a log, revealing its underside and the animals crawling below.]

WARE: Roaches!

WILSON: I got a wood roach!

[In a close-up, Ware and Wilson point out roaches crawling in the dead wood.]

WARE: Look at that! A little- That’s a younger one. Slightly older one.

WILSON: See, even in the winter, you still find stuff, when you flip logs.

[A dying roach lies on its back, its legs wiggling in the air.]

WARE: We’ve been freaked out by roaches for centuries. 

[Ancient Egyptian papyrus shows gods and goddesses and hieroglyphic writing.]

WARE: Ancient Egyptians had spells to ward off roaches. 

[A grassy field in the foreground, out-of-focus buildings stand in the background.]

[On-screen text: Integrated Pest Management]

WARE: Today, we have something called Integrated Pest Management. 

[Ware and Wilson talk in the woods.]

WILSON: There's this kind of idea of taking the biology of the pest, and the ecology of the system you're working in and integrating them together. The insect is a symptom of a problem. The insects’ presence can tell you something about what you need to fix. 

[A cockroach perches on the side of a plastic container, sweeping its antenna around.]

WARE: Pest roaches have a list of undeniably unlikeable—but incredible—traits. They’re the world champions of chemosensory reception. 

[A pest species of roach munches on a piece of bread.]

WARE: Their omnivorous diet can incorporate everything from wallpaper glue to donuts. 

[POV of a roach as it’s sprayed with aerosol can of insecticide.]

WARE: And their incredible immune systems give them resistance to both disease and pesticides.

[Extreme close up of termites crawling on wood. They vary in size—from small, white ones, up to larger adults with imposing mouthparts.]

WARE: 150 million years ago, some of those adaptations laid the genomic groundwork for the evolution of the very first insect society—termites. 

[Ware displays a broken open piece of wood with dozens of tiny termites crawling inside.]

WARE: Yeah, that’s right… termites are roaches, too. 

[Ware and Wilson talk in the woods.]

WARE: When you talk about termites in your work, how do you- Do you refer to them as, like, roaches? Do you refer to them as termites?

WILSON: I mean, I talk about them as termites, like with the common name, but I tell people they're very specialized roaches, very social, wood-eating roaches.

WARE: Yeah. Fancy social, wood-eating roaches.

[A large termite colony attached to a tree trunk in the tropical rainforest. A portion of the colony’s exterior wall has been cut away and the tunnels and insects inside are on view.]

WARE: After nearly a century of debate, in 2018, the Entomological Society of America officially recognized these animals as part of the order Blattodea, the roaches.

[On-screen text: Blattodea | roaches and termites]

[Various species of termites at different life stages.]

WARE: Termites might not have quite the charisma of flower-visiting bees or industrious ants…

[Hundreds of termites move en masse in a mesmerizingly coordinated way.]

WARE: …but they also have incredibly complex communication and coordination. They optimize transportation routes. 

[Drone footage shows dozens, if not hundreds, of large termite mounds dotting a scrubby plain.]

WARE: They build climate-controlled mega structures…

[A huge columnar mound towers above palms and reddish dirt.]

WARE: …some taller than skyscrapers… at least, relative to the size of their construction workers. They’re keystone species, critical to many habitats. 

[Close-up of termites at different life stages crawling through their colony’s tunnels.]

WARE: Termites, like some bees and ants, exist in societies that we call “eusocial.”

[Ware and Wilson walk and talk in the winter forest.]

WILSON: It’s spelled e-u- social. “Eu-” means true, so it's “truly” social.

[Close-up of termites crawling along tree trunk.]

WARE: “Truly” social or eusocial insects like termites have three characteristics: 

[Immature termites cluster together. Termites of different ages crawl through the labyrinth of their colony. ]

WARE: …multiple generations living together, shared parental care, and they have a division of labor. So, in termites, that takes place in the form of three castes.

[Wilson and Ware talk in the forest.]

WILSON: You have workers and soldiers and reproductive castes. 

[Close up of a termite queen and workers surrounding her. The queen has (comparatively) an enormous, pulsing abdomen—many times the size of a single worker.]

WARE: Reproductives are the termite king and queen. 

[Ware holds a termite queen in her hand. We see that what looked enormous in the previous shot, is only about as long as a single finger’s width.]

WARE: And termite queens, by the way, can live for more than 20 years! 

[A hand peels away a piece of dry, destroyed wood from the siding of a building.]

WARE: We don’t like it when termites turn their social stomachs towards our homes and buildings, where their damage can cost billions of dollars annually. 

[Drone footage from high above a plain shows hundreds of large termite mounds interspersed with low shrubs.]

WARE: But in the wild, they—along with earthworms—are arguably the most important engineers in terrestrial ecosystems. A recent study even calculated that termites make up to 40% of all biomass in the soil.

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: So, I think when we think about insect societies, they’re important in their own right because they often function as kind of superorganisms. 

[Towering termite mounds are silhouetted against a vibrant sunset.]

WARE: And they can really shape an environment. 

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: But they’re important to humans because we’re fascinated by social behavior. 

[Termites move busily around a hole in the ground.]

WARE: How is it possible that something so small and wee could have a really complex, you know, society?

[Ware speak to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: C’mon, how amazing is the cockroach???

[Ware and Wilson speak in the forest.]

WARE: I like to think that if people knew more about the- this cool biology of these roaches, right, maybe people would, like, learn to love the roach.

WILSON: Sure. Or at least say, “Ew, but they are cool.”

WARE: Yeah. Ew. Cool.

[Credits roll]

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: So, the first Black woman to get a Ph.D. in entomology was Margaret Collins. 

[An archival black-and-white group shot of dozens of people. The camera focuses in on a woman seated in the front row.]

WARE: And Margaret Collins worked on termites.  

[Image of an academic paper titled “High-Temperature Tolerance in Two Species of Subterranean Termites from the Sonoran Desert in Arizona,” by Margaret S. Collins, et al. Close-up of termites in their colony. Close up of a page from Collins’ field notebook with writing and diagrams. Illustration of termite anatomy from a research paper.]

WARE: So, she produced foundational work on termite ecology, physiology, taxonomy, and defensive behaviors. She described new species.

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: And she had a reputation for being a really prolific and profound scientist, and so she was invited to give a talk at a white university. And when people found out that this Black woman was going to be giving a talk in an academic series, there were bomb threats that were called in and her lecture was canceled. 

[Archival image of Collins in the field with other students.]

WARE: But her son recalls that even in the face of this threat, she just moved the talk to another location.

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: She was committed to civil rights. She drove cars for the Tallahassee Bus Boycott…

[Archival images of Black protestors on a bus and a white policeman watching protestors on the street.]

WARE: …which was a student-led action sparked soon after the better-known one in Montgomery—and she was chased by police cars and tailed by the FBI.

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: She really had to fight against pervasive sexism and racism and despite all of that, she is quoted as saying, you know, “You have to do the work.” And she did the work, like throughout her entire life.

[Various archival images of Collins throughout her professional career—posing at a desk in an academic setting, as well as out in the field.]

WARE: She was a professor at Howard University, Florida A&M University, and Federal City College. And eventually she became a research associate at the Smithsonian, where she had a really extensive field program.

[Ware and other researchers in the field, carrying nets in a savannah and collecting termites in a forest.]

WARE: She did a lot of her field work in Guyana, actually. And that is actually a place where I’ve done a lot of my field work. So, when I go to Guyana and sample termites, I often think, “I wonder if these are some of the descendants of the termites that Margaret Collins sampled.”

[Ware speaks to camera in the Insectarium.]

WARE: She was really a leader in field biology and certainly an inspiration to many of us who have gone on to study termites. 

[Ware stands in her office, holding up a painted portrait of Margaret Collins in front of a microscope.]

WARE: And I have her portrait here in my office. 

[An archival image of Margaret Collins inspecting scientific specimens as a young boy looks on.]

WARE: Who are your science heroes? Tell us about them in the comments.