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.