Week 4 at the Roach Hotel


I added one more small nymph to the collection of animals on week 2. I allowed it to live in the transfer canister that I use during cleaning. I didn't give it any stuff to eat or drink during its first week in the canister. After I week I found that it was still the same size around 2mm by 4mm. On the third week of capitivity I gave it one pellet at and small wet cotton pad. After 1 week of captivity it was 3mm wide and 5mm long. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take photos of these since the camera was being used in the field by my father.

When I added the new inmate to the hotel on the third week I got a new adult cockroach unfortunately its still a female cockroach. This time when I observed what they did as I added a new creature to the collection the roaches simply crowded together on one spot and groomed themselves I noticed that the first cockroach I got tried to nibble on the new adult roachs' leg. This is new behavior than last time when I added the nymph which was scuttling off the other side.

I also managed to spot the roach egg (ootheca) parasite at week 4. I saw three small flies trapped inside the holding cell. They probably laid eggs on the new ootheca inside the holding pen.

I'll wait for the eggs to hatch and rear them so that I can identity them.

Week 5 at the Roach Hotel: 3 Adults

During the mid week check up of the holding pen I noticed that I had 3 adults in the pen. There where bits of cockroach shells lying around. Apparently the nymph roach I caught was near its molting period and had molted during the week. The new adult roach didn't move around and
seemed quite flat missing bulk exterior it presented just last week. This wings seemed brown in shade rather than black.












Nymph at Week 4















New Adult Roach hanging by the side of the transfer canister. Small nymph on top of the rubbish at the mid right side of the holding pen.

I decided to start doing the anatomy of the cockroaches and looked for sites that provided information on roach anatomy.

I found an informative site in How Stuff Works (really quite surprising since I assumed this site dealt with man made machines not animals.) It described the divisions of the cockroach as divided into 3 major parts head, and thorax, abdomen.












Labeled Picture of my specimen. The front legs are also called Prothoraic Legs, the middle legs are called Mesothoraic Legs and the longest legs are called Metathoraic Legs.

Another site that I found quite useful was Insect Morphology and Anatomy it discussed that most insects follow the same general anatomical plan. This is shown in the illustration below















a b

(a) Image from http://www.earthlife.net/insects/images/anatomy/anatomy.gif (b) Image from http://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/cockroach1.htm

So if followed this information provided in image (a) I would have general idea where the internal parts are going to be. It surprised me that just like us the cockroach has its own femur and tibia. The tarsus is its main climbing implement. When I look at this part of the cockroach I seem to think that there could be small hooks on its tip since I see that the roaches would move it into place when climbing up test its grip if it didn't grip to well they would move it out of the surface and try it on another place until it grips. If it doesn't grip anything they give up and move to another place to test.

The growing nymph is now 5 mm long and around 7mm long. It constantly manages to get over the petroleum jelly barrier.

Another observation that I made was that most of the pellets I placed in the holding cell ended up with mold on it. I think the roaches may be carrying mold spores so I have to test this theory out for the next week of observations.

Plant Journal Weeks 4 and 5

Hi to everyone! Its been a busy week doing the required course work, taking exams and checking papers in my work, preparing lectures. Now I'm free to post the observations made during week 4 and 5 for the plant journal.

In week 4 I decided to do a search on the parts of a tomato fruit and I took a look at an open tomato fruit. I simply took a sharp knife, cutting board and two tomato fruits. I opened one up in the transverse direction and the second one I opened in longitudinal direction. I took photos of each section and labeled the transverse section using MS Paint.









Transverse Direction Longitudinal Direction

The tomato fruit is classified in the USA as a vegetable since it served with the main course not after the main course but botanically speaking it is classified as a berry apparently this issue was taken up and dealt with by the US Supreme court to settle tariff issues concerning the crop. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ ] TomatoThe berry is defined as fleshy with few to many seeded, fruit coat soft and fleshy throughout. [ http://www.victoryseeds.com/catalog/vegetable/tomato/tomato_growing.html ]

The outer skin of the tomato plant is called the Epidermis. The inner core is called the Columella. The white fleshy portion after the Epidermis is called the Vascular Bundle. The extension of the vascular bundle that goes towards the Columella is called the Septa. The chamber filled with gelatinous membranes are called the Locular cavity this is where the seeds are found in. The connection of the Seeds to the Columella are called the placenta Tissue. [ http://www-plb.ucdavis.edu/labs/rost/Tomato/Reproductive/anat.html ] The Tomato fruit I opened up is called a multilocular tomato fruit since it has three locular cavities. Tomato fruits with two locular cavities are called bilocular.

I believe that the placenta tissue and columella provides the necessary nourishment to the seeds as the small plant develops. The presence of gelatinous membrane for the tomato fruit is something I have work on why this is the case when bell peppers have the same structure but no such gelatinous membranes.

Week 5 Observations

The tomato specimens grown in my backyard are now around 69 centimeters high with a stem diameter of 0.9 cm at the base of the plant. Comparing the tomato plants placed the ground and those that where left untransplanted there is a considerable difference in their development. I took another photo of the transplanted plant along side the untransplanted plant.















69 cm Transplanted Plant




Untransplanted and Transplanted Tomato Plants.

















When I compared the data I had on the plants during the past few weeks I come up with a the graph shown below:


I have been wondering about the sudden rise in the slope of the growth. It could be perhaps an issue with my data taking or it is directly proportional to the amount of energy available to build new parts hence there could be a relationship between the leaves present in the plant.







I also checked for the presence of the the cotyledon leaves on my plants and surely enough in most plants the cotyledon leaves where missing. Their stems are still there but the leaves have fallen off. I looked closer and found one plant with the cotyledons still on it. Look the lowest leaf on the picture shown below there is one leave left.




















My father was by chance had been planting other tomato plants for production purposes and they had just emerged a week ago. I took some samples to help me understand more about their root system.































Reference materials told me that the tomato plants have two kinds of roots the tap root and lateral root. The tap root in my specimen is the thick root labeled as B in the photo shown above. The lateral roots are those marked as A they are thinner but longer in this 2-3 week old plant.
































In another 2-3 week old plant I could see that few lateral roots had developed.

3rd Week Plant Journal

We last left the tomato plants when they started to develop their first true leaves. The plant box started get crowded so I decided to transplant the seedling to a larger area that would allow them expand their leaves and roots and basically grow in a better manner. So with the help of my father we prepared a new plant bed and began transplanting the plants from the small box to the new plant bed.

During the transplant I noted a few things about out specimens. The cotyledon leaves are at the around 3 inches from the true leaves. The root system is no longer a single anchoring root but is composed of smaller multiple roots. I think the cotyledon leaves wont survive when the plant tries to grow more since the plant now uses the true leaves to make its own energy. I'll probably see this in the fourth week of observations. We transplanted 26 plants all in all. Happy with everything we left the plant bed and proceeded to do our other work.


Unfortunately we didn't watch what was happening the next day and it seems that the abundant bird species of sparrows wanted to try the tomatoes before we did. The second day after transplant we found out that 10 plants had been damaged by the birds who had eaten the leaves of the tomato plants or cut its branches. The problem was that these birds didn't scare easily so bells didn't do. We managed to find an old fishing net stocked at the house and placed it over the plant bed. Unfortunately the task of making sure that the plants where safe had eaten a lot of time.

3rd Week Animal Journal: Trouble at Roach Hotel

Hi to everyone sorry for the long delay with the posts. I just had an extremely busy two weeks. For the third week of observations I wanted to identify what physical differences do american cockroaches have, how they eat and the frequency of cleaning or grooming. 

I started this with the usual task of cleaning their holding containers. I have now tried a new type of system to get them out without trauma placing a smaller container inside.  I placed a small peanut brittle plastic cylinder inside and they scuttled out of the way. When they finally calmed down both of them started to explore the new structure. When one of them decides to rest at the lips I just give the container a whack then they fall into the smaller container.

With both inmates in another container I removed the white paper cover where they usual run into to hide. I weighed the container with feces and egg and with its contents removed I found out that the total weight of the feces and eggs is around 1 gram.  During cleaning I suddenly saw one small bit of fecal matter jump. I looked more closely at it and the fecal matter moved. There was something under it. I then managed to remove the pile of feces and placed them into a syringe and found maggots. Some kind of insect had laid its eggs inside the roach hotel and they were munching away at the fecal matter.  Removing more waste and debris I found a second egg with was soft and covered in fecal matter contaminated with maggots. I think the intruder laid eggs into the roach egg and these hatched may have ate the small roaches inside and when they were bigger decided to go out and eat fecal matter. As to what kind of animal was it that laid the eggs I still don't know I'll wait for the maggots to develop further.

Syringe Containing Maggots                                                       Syringe containing compromised egg

The cockroaches kept in the holding cell are both female since they have stylus on the rear end. The stylus is the small protusion found on the rear end of the female cockroach. The large protusions are called cercus and are present in both male and female cockroaches it is used to detect air currents. The second cockroach I caught is an immature female cockroach since the wings are not fully developed and there is the presence of the styli at its rear end.

Adult Female Cockroach                                         Immature Cockroach

I observed the roaches while eating and found out that they used theyre front legs to hold the pellet and uses its mandibles to cut the food. I also noticed that I touches its food with a second set of antenna like structures. I could hear it biting off portions of the food pellet. I believed that the antenna that touches the food is used to taste it and the longer antenna may be used for navigating.  I'll post the video of this feeding taking place. I just need to tweak its size.

 Two roaches resting after getting transferred.

I also noticed that when ever I decided to transfer them from one container to another they would end up grooming themselves after. I don't know if this is a comfort mechanism or that they don't anything else to do. But I would say this based on what I saw each time they ate they groomed themselves afterwards.

Tomato Seedlings Second Week

When I last posted my tomato seedlings on this blog they're first seed leaves just emerged. That was on June 21.

On the 24th of June I noticed that the seedling started to grow small extra leaves. When I looked at materials from the net it states there that the small leaves that where growing was actually its first true leaves.

The photo taken on the 21st of June only contained the embryonic first leaves of a seedling or Cotyledons. These leaves are apparently used to gather energy from the sun to provide energy for the production of other leaves and growth of the stem (Synthesis).

Unfortunately I got tied up doing a lot of other things from the 24th of June up until the 27 of June and managed to take a photo of it then and this is what I got.

The first true leaves (shaped like a maple leaf) where now broader and new leaves where also coming out of the plant. The cotyledons are still there and I do wonder what will happen to them once the true leaves have expanded and grown to full size.

2nd Week at the Cockroach Hotel

The cockroach I caught is apparently a female cockroach the egg I found when I cleaned its holding cell tells me that. The cockroach was apparently carrying an egg prior to getting caught and managed to lay it while in captivity. Here is a shot of its egg (left side) and its fecal matter (right side) side by side for comparison purposes.

Just to give you some numbers to play with. Its fecal matter is elliptical in nature with a the dimensions 4mm Length 2mm Width and 2mm Height. The fecal matter has an average weight of 0.016 grams this is for twelve sample units of feces. Its egg is larger in size with a length of 7mm Width of 5mm and Height of 4mm. The weight of the egg is around 0.15 grams. What I noticed with the egg is that the cockroach actually glued it to the side of its holding pen by using its fecal matter as mortar, quite creative indeed. I just didn't know if this was standard for a cockroach. I'm still trying to run the cockroach feces under a microscope to see what wonderful dreaded things may lie in there with it.

The next experiment I ran with it was to see it was a social animal so I decided to catch another cockroach and chucked it in with the old resident one. The old cockroach justed jumped when the its new holding pen mate got in. It didn't even go to see what was the new thing that came in.

I gave the two immates (roaches) 0.128 grams of food and it took them 1 day to finish off the whole lot. I gave them a 0.43 gram dog food pellet. And I'm checking how long it will take them to finish it off.

I've read somewhere that cockroaches have give and take relationships with some bacteria. The bacteria lives on their skin they provide a home for it. Nourishment when they walk around in stuff. In turn the bacteria provides vitamins for them so that most cockroaches don't get too sick even if they eat other stuff. I've been giving this much thought on how this can be tested.