Allie Ward

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Okay, so first off, the term cockroach comes from the Spanish cucaracha, which stems from cuca for a caterpillar.

But in Latin, the word blada means that which shuns the light.

So let's shed some light on these low-profile, skittish little critters.

Let's learn about their bonkers dicks, their preferred diets, ones that look like emeralds and candy corn, how to catch a rainforest cockroach if you want to.

their stunning diversity, why we need cockroaches in the wild, at least, but also how to get them out of your house, how they got there in the first place, and some behavioral aspects that will make you wish you had one as a pal, maybe a pet, with entomologist, assistant professor, and professional platodiologist, Dr. Dominic Evangelista.

Blattodiologist, would we say?

Can people email you their thoughts and questions about cockroaches?

Are those questions, how do I get all these roaches out of my refrigerator?

And there's only 10 species of cockroaches, really, that we cohabitate with, correct?

Out of thousands of species in the world?

Maybe we should just start with what even is a cockroach, because I think people probably think there's just the ones that they've seen on TV or maybe like in their dorm room.

So 99.904% of cockroaches will never be in your toaster or your building's boiler room.

They're species not interested.

So where are they then, all those roaches that we never hear about?

And yes, in 2007, the paper came out boldly announcing the death of an order.

A comprehensive molecular phylogenic study confirms that termites are eusocial cockroaches.

And this study noted that our molecular analyses, the most comprehensive yet attempted, show that termites are social cockroaches, no longer meriting being classified as a separate order from the cockroaches.

Instead, we propose that they should be treated as a family of cockroaches.