Cockroaches | Fun Fact Friday | Creepy Factor Upped

Cockroaches gross you out?  You're not the only one!  In fact it is a rare person who is not put off by roaches.  A cockroach infestation in a restaurant, school, or hospital is a serious problem-- cockroaches can carry and transfer bacteria and contaminate food and cooking utensils. 

Many people find the way they scurry for cover when the lights flip on creepy and disgusting.  But that is not our fun fact today!  Our fun fact today ups the creepy factor and rates right up there with Zombie Ants.

Cockroaches can live for weeks without their head.  Not hours, not days, but actually WEEKS!  Entomologists have actually done labs where they decapitated a cockroach and waited to see how long it lived.  The head of the cockroach is not immediately essential for survival.  They breathe through spiracles along the sides of their body and they can survive for weeks without food.  So a cockroach can move the legs and respond to stimuli without a head.  Because of the type of circulatory system that cockroaches have, their blood clots and they do not bleed out.  A decapitated cockroach will usually either become dehydrated or mold-- and that will be the actual cause of death, not the fact that they are missing their head.

Fair warning: This is NOT a Mickey Mouse video and not for those with a weak stomach/gag reflex!



If you are having an issue with cockroaches in your home or business and need help, please call me, Micah, at Peak Pest Management!  I'll help you get rid of cockroaches and/or other pests.

Micah Wood
Peak Pest Management LLC
Micah@peak-pest-management.com
www.peak-pest-management.com
Vancouver 360-607-1933
Portland 503-998-4322
Seattle 206-790-8285

Ants Can Lift Many Times Their Body Weight: Fun Fact Friday

Okay it's Friday!  Time for a fun fact.  I have scoured the internet and come up with no "exact" answer as to how many times their body weight an ant can carry.  The general consensus seems to be that ants can lift, over their heads at least 20 times their body weight.  Of course in "ant" scale it doesn't seem super impressive...  It's kind of like "Wow, that tiny ant is dragging a section of a leaf or something...."  That doesn't seem really impressive until you put it in human terms.

• It would be like walking down the street and seeing a 200lb guy walking along carrying a small-medium sized truck over his head.
• OR to make it even more dramatic, it would be like seeing a 50lb kid walking down the road carrying a compact car.  Now that would be impressive!
• Imagine a 100lb preteen carrying a compact car in each hand, over his/her head.

An ant's ability to lift is pretty incredible.  Some sites suggest that some ants can carry up to 50 times their weight.  So just one in human terms on this one.

• Two 200lb guys could carry a small (20,000 pounds) dump truck over their heads together.

If people had that kind of ability to lift, not only would we not need tow trucks, but can you imagine where some of the sports would be?  Olympic weight lifting for one?  Even though ants can be quite the nuisance, and even structurally damaging as a pest, they are some pretty interesting creatures.

On a more serious note, if you are having a problem with these heavy load lifting pests (or any other pest for that matter), feel free to give me a call for pest control services.  We're in the thick of ant season and they are out in force this year!

Sugar Ants and Pest Control in Spring

Spring in the northwest means rain!  And rain brings in sugar ants.  Sugar ants are also called odorous house ants in the pest control industry.  One way to know if you're dealing with this pest is by the smell given off when they are crushed.  Different people compare the scent to different smells-- where one person compares the smell to coconut; another may say it smells like urine.  Regardless of the scent, an ant that gives off an aroma or odor when crushed is likely an odorous house ant.

Many people wonder why sugar ants tend to appear after a rain.  The answer is simply that the rain washes away honeydew produced by aphids, which is a major source of food for these ants.  They are attracted indoors, out of the rain and often find a plentiful food source in kitchens and pantries of homes.  Sugar ants can eat a wide variety of human foods and are attracted, as their common name suggests, to foods with sugar.  Sugar ants also look for an area to nest and build their colony near food and water supply.  Sugar ants can colonize a very wide variety of areas ranging from under a piece of furniture, under/in a toilet seat, in cracks and crevices throughout a home etc.  Even outdoors sugar ants will colonize opportunistically under a rock, wood pile, alongside another ant colony, etc.  These ants are opportunistic and resilient.  A colony can be tricky to locate and can reproduce and grow pretty rapidly-- a queen ant can lay between 2-20 eggs in a day and a colony can have multiple queens..

A colony of sugar ants will range in size from 100-20,000 so you can imagine that it is probably a wise plan to seek a pest control professional right away to avoid a larger, irritating infestation.  Because sugar ants move indoors with rain, they are a very common pest here in the rainy northwest.  Often people choose to have a regular maintenance program for sugar ants simply because sugar ants are so common in many areas of Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington.  A maintenance program is a very cost effective way to manage sugar ants in the northwest.

While sugar ants do not cause structural damage to a home, they can contaminate foods in the kitchen-- nobody likes to pour a bowl of cereal, or scoop sugar into a cup of coffee with ants!  They can also be an itchy, tickle-y nuisance.

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