Allie Ward

He lay on his armor like back.

And if he lifted his head a little, he could see his brown belly slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections.

The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment.

His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.

So if you want a story about being a cockroach, Metamorphosis awaits.

Are there any movies or books that do a good job of sort of celebrating the evolution and the majesty of the cockroach?

Is Kafka one of them?

What cockroaches would you say you think about the most?

BrioDiversity asks, can you talk about Simendoa conserfarium, the so-called extinct cockroach, known to inhabit a single bat cave in Guinea, West Africa, which was destroyed by mining?

Eleanor Wall also asked about cave-dwelling species, as did, again, BrioDiversity.

A cave cockroach, Helmoblada luisrothi, that hitches rides on bats in order to move caves.

Have you heard of those ones?

And this Simendoa roach continues to thrive, but only in captivity, partly because it's a pretty chill pet, as long as you don't stress them out.

And partly, I think, for design reasons.

They are very cute.

They have like a bumblebee little striped butt.

They have nice white trim around their pronotum, we now know.

Oh, and the one that rides a bat like a getaway car is this stunning translucent butter yellow.

So if you're in the market for a new special interest or you need things to talk about at an upcoming holiday function, may I suggest cave cockroaches?

Fantastic.