New York City is apparently quite uncomfortable these days – for humans. For cockroaches? Treehugger‘s Melissa Breyer, take it away!
This is a story of the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). Not the skittish little ones that live in cabinets and creases, but the giant ones – reaching astonishing lengths of 3 inches or more – that seemingly appear from nowhere. In the south they are called Palmetto bugs, and are elsewhere referred to as water bugs … likely because they revel in city sewers. So charming. They come into our homes in search of food and water. Finding one inside is basically like stumbling across the awful love child or a threesome gone wrong, an unlikely mix of a lobster, an armadillo and a creepy alien.
And in the heat of the summer, add a pterodactyl to that impossible parentage because in weather like this, they fly.
That’s a visual for you – cockroaches, like carrier pigeons, darkening the skies in their, ah, trillions…
