Yucky Bug ID #956968 - seriously yucky. Trigger warning.
October 22, 2018 3:38 PM Subscribe
This disgusting bug looks like a cockroach and a praying mantis had babies. Double yuck. It's about 1.25 to 1.5 inches long. Video. I'm talking about the owner of the antennae, who comes in after about 7 seconds, not the mouse looking on in disgust or the ants. I'm too disgusted to look at a bunch of pictures of gross bugs on google to find it. Hopefully some of you aren't grossed out by bugs!
Definite cockroach.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:27 PM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:27 PM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks guys. Probably need to get the crawl space sprayed. I've evicted the skunks, working on the mice, then to nuke everything else under there.
posted by bluesky78987 at 4:34 PM on October 22, 2018
posted by bluesky78987 at 4:34 PM on October 22, 2018
Yeah that’s some great roach footage. It seems like you’re not especially interested in learning about types of roaches or their biology, but I’ll note that if you try to poison and eradicate a population of any organism that has naturally colonized a space, you’ll either see them come back and recolonize because the same things are attracting them, or you’ll have a different problem stemming from their resource supply.
Roaches and ants are a symptom of an underlying problem, not a cause.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:26 PM on October 22, 2018 [17 favorites]
Roaches and ants are a symptom of an underlying problem, not a cause.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:26 PM on October 22, 2018 [17 favorites]
You know what, I didn’t believe you about the mouse looking on in disgust at those swarming ants but sure enough, there it was. Thanks for this super cute question. And yeah, owner of the antennae is definitely a roach.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 7:06 PM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by moonlight on vermont at 7:06 PM on October 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
That mouse doesn't want to get involved with that many ants in any way, shape, or form. Zero upside.
SaltySalticid is totally right about how they'll just come back; roaches just kind of exist in the environment as a kind of background radiation, so any good habitat will always see at least the occasional stochastic roach, and it only takes one female carrying an ootheca to kickstart a new colony. They're explosive breeders.
Furthermore, there's no saying that just because there is one roach in your dark crawlspace, you have an abnormal or problematic number of roaches in your house. Depending on your climate and the population density in your area (Looks like you maybe live in Los Angeles? Great roach country, Los Angeles.) it may be normal to have some roaches in basically any permanently-dark, undisturbed area, such as a crawlspace. If you keep your living areas clean and dry, they should have little reason to try and leave their customary homes in the interstices of human civilization.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 7:23 PM on October 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
SaltySalticid is totally right about how they'll just come back; roaches just kind of exist in the environment as a kind of background radiation, so any good habitat will always see at least the occasional stochastic roach, and it only takes one female carrying an ootheca to kickstart a new colony. They're explosive breeders.
Furthermore, there's no saying that just because there is one roach in your dark crawlspace, you have an abnormal or problematic number of roaches in your house. Depending on your climate and the population density in your area (Looks like you maybe live in Los Angeles? Great roach country, Los Angeles.) it may be normal to have some roaches in basically any permanently-dark, undisturbed area, such as a crawlspace. If you keep your living areas clean and dry, they should have little reason to try and leave their customary homes in the interstices of human civilization.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 7:23 PM on October 22, 2018 [8 favorites]
Try boric acid. It is not good for pets, though. But it kills roaches and ants. It also creates a great barrier, too.
posted by jadepearl at 1:43 AM on October 23, 2018
posted by jadepearl at 1:43 AM on October 23, 2018
Yeah, good old Periplaneta americana. Hey, you've got really good eyes to note how much it looks like a mantis. One of my favorite fun facts about bugs is that praying mantises are the sister group (very close relative) to cockroaches+termites -- mantises can be not-unreasonably thought of as predatory cockroaches.
I know it looks gross to you. But she's living where she's supposed to be living and she's taking care of the detritus she's supposed to be taking care of. Our homes are still part of a wild, natural world, and they *are* ecosystems. As Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The says, if your living areas are *not* set up to be good roach habitat, the roaches will stay where there *is* good roach habitat, living their little roach lives as they have done for over 300 million years.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 5:45 AM on October 23, 2018 [13 favorites]
I know it looks gross to you. But she's living where she's supposed to be living and she's taking care of the detritus she's supposed to be taking care of. Our homes are still part of a wild, natural world, and they *are* ecosystems. As Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The says, if your living areas are *not* set up to be good roach habitat, the roaches will stay where there *is* good roach habitat, living their little roach lives as they have done for over 300 million years.
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 5:45 AM on October 23, 2018 [13 favorites]
If you have that many animals/insects in your crawl space, I'm guessing it must be sort of damp. Get rid of the dampness, and many of the bugs will leave. Ants are also generally 'background radiation' like roaches.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:39 AM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:39 AM on October 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
Seconding don't even mess with poison yet, in CA you can usually just get rid of the moisture and debris and you'll get rid of the roaches.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:56 AM on October 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 11:56 AM on October 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:03 PM on October 22, 2018 [4 favorites]