The american cockroach "palmetto bug" that wont die

[Guest ryangrom]

Ok, I just had one of the most creepy yet facinating experiences of my life. I live in Florida and American Cockroaches are everywhere. They are giant roaches "reported up to 3 inches" that can FLY! I spot one of these in my room on the floor and crush it with my can of turtle food. I used a single bludgeoning strike with decent force then twisted the can until i heard a crunching noise. I lift up the can and there was no guts or anything. He was still pretty much in tact and rose a little as the carpet rose from being pushed down by the can but wasnt moving at all. That should give you an idea of the force I used. I left the room because I was on my way outside to smoke a cigarette and figured I would flush him later. I come back in the room after smoking and there is a roach on my curtain this time so I grab a CD case and flick him to the floor then crush him with the cd case flat on the floor and this time I saw this one move when I picked up the CD case so I turned the CD case vertically and used the side to crush his head and he was twitching violently so I used greater force until his head was severed. Now this is where the story gets bizarre and disturbing.

The first roach I thought I killed was not there on the carpet anymore so I am convinced the second roach was the first one that didnt die somehow Ok, now the antanae on the head and the little things by their "mouth" that look like somewhere in between antanea and teeth where moving violently and the body was spazzing violently. I remembered my brother telling me how the human head once decapitated is still functioning for a short yet disturbing amount of time. So the scientist in me wanted to see what happened with my poor roach friend I "killed". I watched him for a bit then lost interest because I thought that it was dead now for sure and was just moving because of muscle spasms and electrical brain impulses or something I know nothing about and then I returned to my computer game I was playing before any of the roach occurances happened.

Yep, I left him to be cleaned later as nasty as that sounds. I wanted to play the game. I looked back over there after 30 minutes or so and he was still moving a little. he was on his back and doing the thing with their legs where he moves them in a death yawn or pawing at nothing. Hard to descripe unless you've seen roaches on their back doing it. They seem to die by just getting flipped over. Ive come into the kitchen and seen them almost dead on the floor like that. they can fly but are clumsy so im guessing they crash into something and wind up on their backs? anyways, I go to smoke another cigarette and told my roomate about it. I was amazed at the fact that he was capable of doing it that long after having no head. Ok another hour of me playing that computer game and peeking over periodically lapses and here is the climax of the story. He was still moving. but the climax is how..I am amazed yet creeped out at this point so decide to do a little expirementing..Now I am not talking just about his body. His antanae on his head would still move as well. that disturbed me more. So i poke the body with a pen and it flinches!! it responded to a slight poke with a pen in the same manner one with a head would if flipped on his back. it gets worse..i do it again. it does it again...an hour and a half later after being beheaded the thing still responds like it has a head. it gets worse...I took my pack of cigarettes and used it to flip the body right side up on the cd case I used to behead him and he tried to "escape?" but only his two back feet worked for some reason so he couldnt go anywhere really. I do the same with his head on the cd case and watch them both boggling for a bit. The head began to attempt to escape. It was definatelly still processing thought because it was using its things by its mouth i spoke of earlier to move itself.. it would go off the cd case if i didnt back it up. I called my roomate in at this point so someone could see that I was not going crazy. I poked the body and again it flinches and tries to escape. And I mean this thing was pawing at nothing on its back earlier acting like it had moments left of electrical impulses or whatever and then with the slightest and I stress slightest prodding it would try to freaking escape. and so was the head although i didnt prod it because it was trying to escape on its own. Now i can swear to you that their is no doubt in my mind, and i mean no doubt in my mind that the head was still processing thought after an hour and a half. I know this by observing the way it was moving around. it wasnt just aimlessly trodding forward. it tried to just flee off the cd case until i centered it and then it went forward a little and stopped. it somehow turned itself slightly as if pondering an escape route and it turned a bit more and was facing me and it stopped a moment then turned 90 degrees and tried to escape again. This thing was thinking. The body i am not sure about. it stopped trying to escape and just kind of used its back legs to lift its rear a little in the air and then back down again. maybe it was trying to go forward but couldnt and maybe it had some kind of impulse to flee when prodded and then reverted back to senseless muscle movements. i couldnt tell and at that final point when his head showed intelligence i spoke of i decided to flush them. i had the thought before to put them in something and check them in the morning but i couldnt take anymore. i put them in the toilet and they both still acted alive. the body flailed wildly. it looked the same as if it was one with a head that was just put in the toilet and the head was too. Now I dont expect anyone to believe this as it seems exagerated and just untrue but I BEG OF ANY OF YOU TO PLEASE CONDUCT THIS SAME EXPERIMENT. I need to know how and why and want someone with a scientific standing to document this and explain it or just tell me something. if anyone can point me to information on this i would love to know. I am a man of science but the thought did cross my mind that perhaps this was animated by an unseen force but i dont believe so of course. I know i am not crazy since i forced my roomate to observe but I am amazed yet shaken to a degree. Something feels not right with me now and I need to know just what in the world i witnessed. I hit up the internet trying to find some information and I did find out for sure that it is an american cockroach not a palmetto bug like I thought they were called. it is a commonly confused name and has become urbanly know as the palmetto even though there is a different bug that looks totally different called the palmetto bug.

[husmusen]

Mike the headless chicken

 

Cheers

 

P.S. Some insects have pretty sophisticated redundancy, so I don't find it

greatly surprising, snakes too move for ages after you behead them.

[inbred]

That sounds like a pretty strange story but there are other examples. Certainly snakes and chicken like Husmusen demostrates are very similar. Then there is the Frankenstein monster. Look at all the shit they did to him and he still lived to kill again. And our fearless leader George W. See how he functions with no brain. Not very well but at least he can put on his pants. The giant cockroaches here in Indiana are very spooky. They hate people like poison and usually only come out at night when nobody is around. They run like scared headless chickens when suprised.

[ecoli]

You aint seen nothing like the Madagascar hissing coackaroahes that my mother keeps in a cage as pets. Those suckers are huge, even though we have them in a tiny cage.

[Glider]

Cockroaches don't have brains per se, they have a chain of ganglia. Decapitating them won't kill them immediately, it just removes their mechanisms of navigation, communication and feeding. If you take the head off a roach, it will remain alive until it starves to death.

[mmalluck]

A cockroach can live as long as two weeks without it's head. The Orkin-man told me so...

[Phi for All]

Make them read a single paragraph with 1330 words in it. That will kill ANYTHING!

[flyboy]

try dousing him with a flammable liquid and light him on fire then see if he moves

[YT2095]

Methrin based gels will do the job quite effectively, if you don`t have any or can`t buy it, get a can of Ant or Fly/Wasp killer and read the ingredients, if it contains Methrins then OUTDOORS spray a load into a bowl and mix it with Honey, then spoon a little onto tea cup saucers and put them in corners where it`s dark (back of a kitchen cuboard or the stove is good).

those suckers don`t last long then!

 

just make sure if you have pets, that they can`t get near it.

[flyboy]

lighting it on fire would be more fun to watch

[H2SO4]

pour black powder on them and light the powder.

[Lance]

pour black powder on them and light the powder.

 

Have you even seen a roach? How the hell would you go about pouring black powder on one and proceding to light it. I am not sure you have thought this plan all the way through.

[Guest Kazzeh]

Bah.. Cruel people, I tell ye.

 

Interesting story though.. I only thank god we don't have them here.