Allie Ward

So yeah, this single cockroach species that makes milk, Diploptera punctata, is a beetle mimic.

And they're these cute little dusty brown critters.

They look kind of like a June beetle.

And as we covered last week with Dr. Dominic Evangelista in the Blattodiology episode, there are 7,000 identified species of cockroach worldwide.

with a possible three times that total in the world.

So there's a lot we don't know about the creatures of planet Earth, including cockroaches.

But we do know of at least one species of cockroach-making milk.

But they're not the only insects that give live birth.

Any theories, any hypotheses on why Pacific beetle cockroaches might be giving live birth as opposed to all the other cockroaches doing it differently?

So in this environment, if you have a hundred little less developed babies, they may get picked off too easily.

They could go hungry.

But if you invest heavily in a dozen or so, keeping them inside your physical body and then shooting them into the world when they're more prepared, they may have a better shot at life.

And if you are listening to this and you're 28 and you're living at home with your parents, you can use this argument to justify finishing off the coffee creamer without replacing it.

And so with this Pacific beetle cockroach, they do it at the same time.

They're pregnant while they're nursing.

Yeah.

So let's get to the anatomy of this, because Josh, when I got to talk to you about this before, it blew my mind.

But instead of having a ton of eggs and being like, see you, good luck,

I wish you the best.

They keep a smaller number of eggs in a brood sack inside their bodies.