Allie Ward

And it continues with the backstory that termites, cockroaches, and mantids form a well-established lineage, uniquely defined by having a perforation in essentially what is their skull.

and enclosing their eggs in a specialized case called an uuthika.

So yeah, you got termites, you got some wood-eating roaches.

But do other cockroaches live in that kind of social structure?

Is that one thing that sets them apart from other types of cockroaches?

Or do a lot of cockroaches have that division of labor?

And yes, a French 2009 study titled The Weight of the Clan, Even in Insects, Social Isolation Can Induce a Behavioral Syndrome, found that like some vertebrate organisms, German cockroaches reared among 10 siblings fared better in life than ones raised in complete solitude, which suffered from reduced appetites and less exploration of their surroundings.

They were shy roaches, if you will, and they were bad at flirting.

But roaches also take restaurant recommendations from each other.

They prefer to have dinner companions when enjoying a food source before they all move on to enjoy another nearby snack.

And this was evidenced in the 2010 paper, Collective Foraging Decision in Gregarious Insect.

And yeah, they are great parents.

Well, better than me, but that's because I don't have any children.

What makes a cockroach a cockroach then?

So yeah, cockroaches make themselves some nice handbags.

They craft them with their genitals and they're stuffed to the zipper with their own children.

And I picture cockroach moms birthing an Uuthika like Miranda Priestly slamming a handbag on a desk in the Devil Wears Prada.

These ladies are loathed, feared, but also respected, and a city girl and cosmopolitan to the core.

But out in the wild, of course, they are living all kinds of varied lives.

But still, they emerge into the world from mommy's vagina purse.