Super cockroach resistant to cold found in NYC

[Hum]

From the city that never sleeps, just in time for winter holiday season comes the perfect gift for the person who has everything -- a species of cockroach that has just appeared in New York and -- oh, joy! -- can withstand harsh cold.

Finding a new cockroach in New York is a bit like bringing coals to Newcastle or trying to out-twerk Miley Cyrus. After all, it is not like there is a shortage of cockroaches in New York, or, indeed, in any urban or suburban area.

Though it is has never been an official contestant on ?Survivor,? the insect is affectionately known for its hardiness and its well-earned reputation for an ability to live in the worst of conditions, including scant food or even no air for a time. It is said that if humanity succeeds in destroying itself in a nuclear holocaust, the roaches will manage to carry on -- though, to be fair, there is little empirical evidence for that.

But there is observational evidence for the hardiness of the roach species, Periplaneta japonica, which is well entrenched in Asia but whose presence has never been confirmed in the United States -- until now.

In a paper for the Journal of Economic Entomology,  Rutgers University insect biologists Jessica Ware and Dominic Evangelista write of confirming the presence of the Asian cockroach, first spotted in 2012 by an exterminator working on the High Line, Manhattan?s magnificent urban park, that reclaimed the former elevated spur of the New York Central Railroad on the West Side.

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[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

Two years later...

 

[123456789A]

Quick, kill it with fire, while you still can!

[DocM]

That's all NYC needs - more cockroaches. There's enough in City Hall.

[Growled Member]

How about we take them to the North Pole and test that?

[Praetor]

Forget fire..

 

[webeagle12]

The High Line, a park that turned a dilapidated stretch of elevated railway on Manhattan's West Side into one of New York's newest tourist attractions, may have brought a different kind of visitor: a cockroach that can withstand harsh winter cold and never seen before in the U.S.

Rutgers University insect biologists Jessica Ware and Dominic Evangelista said the species Periplaneta japonica is well documented in Asia but was never confirmed in the United States until now. The scientists, whose findings were published in the Journal of Economic Entomology, say it is too soon to predict the impact but that there is probably little cause for concern.

That competition, Ware said, will likely keep the population low, "because more time and energy spent competing means less time and energy to devote to reproduction.""Because this species is very similar to cockroach species that already exist in the urban environment," Evangelista said, "they likely will compete with each other for space and for food."

Michael Scharf, a professor of urban entomology at Purdue University, said the discovery is something to monitor.

 

"To be truly invasive, a species has to move in and take over and out-compete a native species," he said. "There's no evidence of that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about it."

The newcomer was first spotted in New York in 2012, by an exterminator working on the High Line.

The scientists suspect the little critter was likely a stowaway in the soil of ornamental plants used to adorn the park. "Many nurseries in the United States have some native plants and some imported plants," Ware said. "It's not a far stretch to picture that that is the source."

 

Periplaneta japonica has special powers not seen in the local roach population: It can survive outdoors in the freezing cold.

"There has been some confirmation that it does very well in cold climates, so it is very conceivable that it could live outdoors during winter in New York," Ware said. "I could imagine japonica being outside and walking around, though I don't know how well it would do in dirty New York snow."

 

The likelihood that the new species will mate with the locals to create a hybrid super-roach is slim.

"The male and female genitalia fit together like a lock and key, and that differs by species," Evangelista says. "So we assume that one won't fit the other."

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/12/09/invasive-cockroach-found-in-nyc/

 

p.s: Set a whole thing on fire

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

I don't know why this made me laugh
""The male and female genitalia fit together like a lock and key, and that differs by species," Evangelista says. "So we assume that one won't fit the other.""

[Growled Member]

 

Rutgers University insect biologists Jessica Ware and Dominic Evangelista said the species Periplaneta japonica is well documented in Asia but was never confirmed in the United States until now.

 

So they are transplants here? No wonder they can withstand the cold. Asia can be brutal in the winter.

[Marshall Veteran]

Threads Merged

[thomastmc]

I'm only surprised that this didn't happen sooner. It's much easier to get locked away in a shipping container or luggage and make it half way around the world than to ride a stick to Hawaii.

[The Evil Overlord]

Forget fire..

 

Unfortunately, it won't work, they're resistant to radioactive fallout

[The Evil Overlord]

I wonder how they would fair in lets say, Siberian, or Polar winters......?

[Sadelwo]

Oh great, a roach that can survive in a freezer. There goes the safety of ice-cream trucks.

[Hum]

if only the homeless would learn to eat cockroaches ... :/

[McKay]

Kill them before they become resistant to fire.