Who eats cockroaches is interesting to those who would like to defeat them with the help of natural enemies and pets. Do you know where cockroaches hide? Then read about how they are found by their natural exterminators and destroyed en masse.
Natural enemies of cockroaches are mammals, amphibians, wasps and other reptiles. For example, hedgehogs will eat cockroaches. Among those who like to eat cockroaches are geckos, skinks and other species of lizards, frogs, turtles, some species of birds and even rats and mice. Lizards, which are reptiles, are even known to hunt cockroaches when they encounter them and are eager for a snack.
What kind of animals eat cockroaches?
Insects, including cockroaches, make up the majority of the lizard's diet. Some species, such as the bearded dragon, an Australian reptile, and the globally common leopard gecko, are natural predators of cockroaches. The leopard gecko is a nocturnal lizard, which makes it an even greater threat to cockroaches. Black-throated lizards (also known as black-throated monitors) also love cockroaches, especially those that grow to 10 centimeters or more in length.
Families who keep lizards such as geckos and iguanas as pets know that cockroaches are an inexpensive, convenient and nutritious addition to their pet's diet. However, it is best if the pet owner understands that the lizard should be fed cockroaches that are equal in size to the length between the lizard's eyes. Small cockroaches that can sometimes be found in your home make easy targets for your pet.
While it's nice to know that your pet lizard can take care of cockroaches that might get into its cage, it's very unlikely that you'll allow this type of pet to roam around the house and take the brunt of your cockroach control efforts.
In terrariums
No less interesting is who eats cockroaches from pets. To understand this, you can examine professional and amateur terrariums and talk with specialists. Fans of lizards and other exotic reptiles are aware of which animals feed on baleen cockroaches. Many types of domestic animals consume such insects:
- Those types of birds that are kept at home.
- Iguanas.
- Certain species of lizards.
- Turtles. Various turtles eat those arthropod insects that are sold in zoological stores or bred at home.
- Jerzy.
- Predator fish.
- Turtles.
- Decorative rats and mice.
- Snakes.
The popularity of exotic and domestic cockroaches among terrarium owners is due to the fact that these insects help to quickly saturate the animal.
Some owners of terrariums do not purchase insects, but raise cockroaches in their apartment themselves. Most often, they choose Madagascar, black and American cockroaches, since they are distinguished by their large size and the presence of protein.
What predators love cockroaches?
The list of common natural predators of cockroaches is huge and humans can count themselves in to be number one on the list. Yes, man is the main predator of them.
Also, check out the top ones listed below:
- Small mammals
- Geckos
- Big spiders
- Salamanders
- Toads
- frogs
- Turtles
- Lizards
Snakes are also very good predators of cockroaches.
Do toads eat cockroaches?
These creatures are by far the most common enemies. Amphibians regularly ingest numerous cockroaches in one sitting!
While frogs and toads are certainly similar, they are actually two different species. Their similarities stem from the fact that toads and frogs belong to the same largest order of tailless amphibians, numbering over 7,000 living and 84 fossil species.
Their main differences are that toads have more stable legs and thicker, bumpier skin. Meanwhile, frogs have long legs and smooth skin covered with a layer of mucus.
Toads live in almost any environment of the country and are grayish-brown or gray in color, but there are also red ones with even darker spots the color of old bricks.
Toads eat cockroaches like popcorn and can be found in most home yards. They like to live in places where they have a source of water and shady cover. By creating a garden area that has a small pool of water and a raised rock for shade, you will attract large numbers of toads and have a natural and effective way to get rid of pesky cockroaches and other annoying insects!
Do frogs eat cockroaches?
A variety of frogs are even more common than toads. These creatures live near ponds, lakes and other soft, moist environments. Their characteristic green color with black spots helps them blend in with their freshwater aquatic environment. They measure 8-12 centimeters and eat cockroaches in addition to a menu of other insects.
Most people have heard of grass frogs, or common frogs, or European frogs. This elusive little species lives in grassy and wooded areas and begins croaking cheerfully in the spring. Their dark brown color helps them camouflage. They are small, two to three centimeters long, and love to eat cockroaches as well as other small bugs.
Do opossums eat cockroaches?
The opossum is the only marsupial in North America, and is an omnivore that eats cockroaches, worms and even garbage. Like other marsupials, the female gives birth to a small, barely developed young, which she carries in her pouch. Opossums are considered ugly by many. In addition, people worry about the risk of getting rabies from their bites. However, at home it can become a cockroach killing machine. Each possum weighs between three and six kilograms when raised indoors and requires slightly more food per day than the average house cat.
Temperature-induced pest control
If it is not possible to remove a small family of pests using chemical means due to your home environment, you can resort to a more cunning method. If you find living creatures in the winter, try to leave the apartment with your family for a few hours. Before leaving, turn off the heating pipes and open all the windows wide. Cockroaches cannot stand the cold and will run away to another place that is more comfortable for them. If the temperature in the apartment drops below 5 degrees, the pests will die along with the laid eggs. The freezing method has proven itself well in practice, but it is worth considering that the method has its drawbacks. At such a low temperature, an incident may occur with the heating system. It is also worth taking care of indoor plants in advance. It is in flower pots and soil that insects can hide and survive. In such an environment they will continue to reproduce and feel good
It is also important to understand that laid eggs may be in a place inaccessible to frost. You can try this method, if only to significantly reduce the number of adult individuals. The remaining cockroaches will have to be removed using a more effective method.
You can get rid of pests using proven home methods.
It is important to understand that the process is not easy, but the result will be worth it. Often, experienced housewives resort to traps using boric acid.
This composition destroys pests and even completely solves problems in a relatively short period of time.
Egg and potato. Boil a chicken egg hard. Remove the yolk and grind with 1 boiled potato tuber. Add 50 g to the ingredients. boric acid. Make small balls from the resulting mass. Dry the product near the heating device. After this, spread the bait throughout the apartment. Don't worry, this composition is absolutely safe for pets and people.
Sugar and flour. Use a container of a suitable size and combine granulated sugar, boric acid, and flour in it in equal quantities. Add a small amount of water to the ingredients. As a result, you should have a dense dough. Next, proceed according to the above scheme. Roll into balls and distribute around the perimeter of the apartment overnight.
Boric acid and water. You can resort to a simpler method. Dissolve a small amount of the chemical composition in running water and place the container in the kitchen near the sink
In this case, it is important to completely isolate the insects’ path to other sources of liquid. As a result, the cockroaches will be poisoned in the homemade drinking bowl.
Boric acid
Some housewives simply sprinkle a chemical composition on areas where pests live. The most common areas to include are vents, bathrooms, kitchens, sinks, trash cans, and baseboards.
Starch and vanillin. Combine 40 grams in a common container. boric acid, 4 gr. vanilla and 65 gr. starch, powdered sugar. Add a small amount of water to make a sticky paste. Apply the product to cardboard and place such a trap throughout the house. Pests cannot resist such a delicacy, and then die.
House plants. Indoor flowers are no less popular in the fight against insects. Some of these representatives emit a rather unpleasant odor for pests, and humans do not feel anything. This will require small bouquets. Hang decorations throughout the apartment in areas where cockroaches gather. Among such plants, eucalyptus, mint, elderberry, lemon balm, wild rosemary and chamomile are effective.
Citrus zest. This method cannot be accurately called effective, although experienced housewives claim otherwise. To get rid of the problem, just place citrus fruit zests throughout your apartment. The specific smell repels cockroaches, so they will not get to your products.
Getting rid of cockroaches is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. To fix the problem, you should familiarize yourself with simple rules and safety precautions. If you don’t want to bother yourself, you should seek help from specialists. Otherwise, household products sold in the store will help you.
It is also worth paying attention to proven folk methods
Do other insects and humans eat cockroaches?
There are some predatory beetles in nature! They hunt and feed on other insects, using them as food for themselves or their larvae. While it is not recommended to let them out in your home, they can be a good addition to the garden to keep cockroaches and pests such as aphids at bay. Beneficial predatory beetles: ground beetles and soldier bugs.
Some types of spiders can prey on cockroaches.
Some types of ants eat cockroaches when they encounter them in a confined space. Because cockroaches move faster than ants, they can often escape unless they are trapped and the ants can surround them. Types of ants that will consume cockroaches include the invasive red fire ants and Argentine ants.
Some species of mites, roundworms and centipedes also prey on cockroaches.
There are species of parasitic wasps that lay eggs in the egg capsules of some cockroaches. When the wasps hatch, they eat the cockroach eggs and emerge from the ootheca. These wasps are known to parasitize American, Oriental and brown cockroaches.
People eat cockroaches too! Just not the ones you find in your home. Contrary to popular belief, cockroaches can be very clean and tasty insects, especially if they feed on fresh fruits and vegetables. They can be eaten fried, stewed or boiled.
What do bats eat, where do they live, why are they dangerous, and how to get rid of them
Bats are associated with vampires, witches, and sorcerers. Many are sure that these nocturnal animals are capable of sucking blood from a person... What do they actually eat and how dangerous are they for people?
Not only residents of rural areas, but also owners of city apartments can face an invasion of bats. And if in the countryside winged animals take up residence in attics and sheds, then in megacities they nest comfortably on balconies. Why is such a neighborhood dangerous, and how to get rid of uninvited guests who annoy you with squeaks and rustling noises at night?
Cockroaches are like waste processing plants
- China's expanding cities are producing more food waste than they can handle in landfills, and cockroaches may be a way to get rid of mountains of food waste, providing nutritious food for livestock when bedbugs eventually die and, some say, cure stomach ailments and cosmetics procedures.
- On the outskirts of Jinan, the capital of eastern Shandong province, a billion cockroaches are fed 50 tons of kitchen waste a day, equivalent to the weight of seven adult elephants. This is only at one plant.
- The waste arrives before dawn at the plant, where it is conveyed through pipes to the cockroaches in their chambers.
- In total, four recycling plants are needed to process a third of the kitchen waste produced in the city of about seven million people.
- A nationwide ban on the use of food waste as pig feed due to outbreaks of African swine fever is also fueling the growth of the cockroach industry.
- Cockroaches are a biotechnological way to recycle kitchen waste. Cockroaches are also a good source of protein for pigs and other livestock. It's like turning waste into resources.
- There are other Chinese entrepreneurs with similar ideas, selling cockroaches to pig and fisheries as feed, and to pharmaceutical companies as medicinal ingredients. This is of great economic importance.
- Elsewhere in Sichuan, Gooddoctor raises six billion cockroaches. They are used to make medicines to treat mouth ulcers and ulcers, skin wounds and even stomach cancer.
- Researchers are also exploring the possibility of using cockroach extract in cosmetic masks, diet pills and even in the treatment of hair loss.
- At Gooddoctor, when the cockroaches reach the end of their lives around six months, they are steamed, washed and dried before being sent into a huge tank for nutrient extraction.
- When asked about the likelihood of cockroaches escaping, experts say that it would be worthy of a disaster movie. Precautionary measures have been taken at the plant. They have a moat with water and fish. If the cockroaches escape, they will fall into the moat and the fish will eat them all.
Pets
Cats eat cockroaches. Most cat owners can attest that cats love to play with almost anything that moves on the ground nearby. When they are sleeping, your furry kitten is most likely hunting and the cockroach is the best target for real hunting.
Cats require large amounts of protein to survive. Wild cats living on the streets get their animal protein by hunting other animals, including mice, rats, birds and sometimes even rabbits. Domestic cats obtain sufficient amounts of animal protein through food provided by their owners.
But if a domestic cat gets enough animal protein in its diet to survive, why does it continue to chase insects? According to some veterinarians, the act of hunting insects is rooted in a cat's instincts.
Can you rely on your cat to catch all the cockroaches in your house? Unfortunately, this is very unlikely. Moreover, cats can often play with a cockroach and not even kill it.
A dog can also hunt, kill and eat cockroaches, but this does not always happen. Some dogs are better at hunting insects than others, and some don't pay much attention to cockroaches. Just like with cats, there is a possibility, albeit a very small one, that eating cockroaches could pose a health risk to our pets if the cockroaches have a disease or have come into contact with the insecticide you have been poisoning the insects in hopes of controlling the growing population of the pesky pests.
Birds eat cockroaches
Although a bird will enjoy a cockroach from time to time, it is not considered the pest's biggest enemy.
Swallows: Their diet consists solely of insects such as flies, mosquitoes, crickets, moths, flying ants, dragonflies and beetles, among other insects, including some that have venom.
One of the most famous features of these birds is that they are migratory and can travel long distances, feeding their young in flight or flying up to almost 1000 kilometers per day.
Hoopoes eat insects and invertebrates, which they literally pluck from the ground or holes with their long, curved beak. They are very recognizable by their beautiful crest, their mode of flight is one of the most elegant in the world of birds, causing them to be compared even to butterflies. Sometimes they eat cockroaches.
But in fact, it is quite rare to see a bird eating a cockroach. For one, most species of cockroaches live indoors, and both nymphs and adults are typically found in dark, warm, and damp places, such as damp, hard-to-reach areas in your home, in and around bathtubs, and under your kitchen or bathroom sink. Thus, cockroaches living in an apartment are in most cases not visible to any bird flying outside.
Although they prefer dark and damp environments, cockroaches can also be found outdoors, although they still seek out the same environment. Outside, cockroaches are most often found near sewers or, if they move during the warmer months, migrating from one large building to another. Due to this pest's isolated habitat, both indoors and outdoors, birds are typically unable to reach the cockroach, perhaps even see it.
Features of bats
Bats belong to the order Chiroptera. But they are not “relatives” of ordinary mice. They are considered primates. These animals are nocturnal, despite their rather poor eyesight, and are perfectly oriented in the dark. Bats emit ultrasound, which helps to accurately distinguish small stones from insects over long distances. It is thanks to echolocation that they move in the dark. Below are some more interesting facts about bats.
- Life cycle. Bats live longer than dogs. On average, the lifespan of a “mystical” animal is 25-30 years.
- Dimensions. Bats, depending on the species, may have different parameters. Some individuals do not exceed the dimensions of a bumblebee in size. But there are also real giants, whose wingspan is 2 m.
- Ancient inhabitants. According to archaeological excavations, bats inhabited our planet approximately 55 million years ago. These animals have been practically untouched by evolution. Their remains are no different from modern individuals.
- Body temperature. Can vary from −7ºС to +48ºС.
- State of numbness. In winter, bats, deprived of the opportunity to get their own food, prefer to do nothing. Goes into a sleep state. This numbness can last up to eight months. The animal independently slows down metabolic processes and lowers body temperature. In the event of severe frosts, they can turn into real “icicles”, but with the arrival of warmth they thaw and continue their life activity again.
Bats breed once a year. Babies are conceived during wintering. The offspring are never numerous. Usually in the summer only one mouse is born. Sometimes two cubs may be born.Area
These animals choose secluded, dark and completely safe shelters during the daytime. In the wild, they settle in rock crevices, caves, abandoned burrows and hollows, on the slopes of dunes, even in the recesses of walls.
Wasps vs cockroaches
Several species of the wasp family are especially fond of cockroaches. Much research by entomologists is aimed at finding insects that use cockroaches as food sources and have the potential to control the population of this pest. Among several options, three species of parasitoid wasps have been further studied as possible candidates for this task: Ampulex compressa, Evania appendigaster, and a small wasp called Aprostocetus hagenowii.
The emerald wasp preys on the cockroach for both survival and reproduction. The wasp is about 3cm long and gets its name from its bright green color. When the wasp sees a cockroach, it lands on it and stabs it with its sting, and its venom paralyzes the cockroach, turning it into a zombie. Thus, although the cockroach is still alive, it cannot fight back. She tears off its antennae, drinks some of the "blood" (hemolymph), and leaves the egg on the victim's body. The wasp larva is ingested by a live cockroach at birth and slowly eats its organs, transforming into an adult wasp in about 20 days. She emerges from the cockroach's desiccated body through a hole in her stomach, in the best Alien eighth passenger style. This wasp is most common in home gardens.
Evania appendigaster is a 1.5cm black wasp that flies around sewers and cockroach infested areas. This wasp seeks out the cockroach's egg capsules—a hard, bean-like structure called an ootheca—in which to lay the egg. The process of drilling the testicular membrane can take almost half an hour. After a couple of days, a larva is born, which eats all the eggs and embryos of the cockroach, and then turns into a wasp, which emerges from the ootheca through an opening.
The wasp Aprostocetus hagenowii, about 2 mm in size, is also black and also lays eggs inside the ootheca. She leaves behind not one, but several eggs, which still reproduce (through polyembryony, a cloning process) into 100 larvae. They feed on whatever they find in the ootheca and emerge from the ootheca after about 25 days as a small swarm of wasps.
All of these wasps are common in cities, and their presence affects the local cockroach population.
