Blatta orientalis

“ In 1859 Darwin (1887) stated that "In Russia the small Asiatic cockroach [Blattella germanica?] has everywhere driven before it its great congener [Blatta orientalis?] ." Yet in France Girard (1877) suggested that the oriental cockroach be introduced into a restaurant infested with the German cockroach as the best way to expel the latter, because the more robust species drives away cockroaches of smaller size. Wille (1920) in Germany found usually only one species of cockroach in a house. ”

“ We (Willis et al., 1958) have confirmed the above observations that Blattella germanica, Blatta orientalis, and Periplaneta americana complete nymphal development in less time when reared in groups rather than individually. We (loc. cit.) also found that nymphs of the following additional species matured more quickly when reared in groups: Eurycotis floridana, Periplaneta fuliginosa, Supella supellectilium, Nauphoeta cinerea, and Pycnoscelus surinamensis; only a very slight decrease in the average length of the developmental period was found in grouped nymphs of Leucophaea maderae. ”

“ Natural prey.—Blatta orientalis, U.S.A. (Roth and Willis, unpublished data, 1953) : Dermestes ater is generally a scavenger, but we have seen adult beetles, which had developed in our cockroach colony, clinging to and feeding on living oriental cockroaches, eventually killing them; the beetles probably attack only the weakened or injured cockroaches in a culture. This was a natural infestation of a laboratory culture by a predator. ”

“ Johnson and Mellanby (1939) , also in laboratory experiments, were unable to show that bedbugs can be controlled by Blatta orientalis or that bedbugs are eaten to any extent by them. The existing evidence indicates that there is little basis for the often repeated statement that cockroaches destroy bedbugs in nature. As Lorando (1929) pointed out, assassin bugs, cockroaches, and red ants can hardly be considered as practical factors in bedbug control, though he did recommend the use of spiders. ”

“ Finally, the cockroaches ceased to bite and fight each other when they crowded together in the face of danger.
Of Blatta orientalis Marlatt (1915) stated "This species is notably gregarious in habit, individuals living together in colonies in the most amicable way, the small ones being allowed by the larger ones to sit on them, run over them, and nestle beneath them without any resentment being shown." Haber (1919) also observed that this species is often noticed "huddled together, the younger ones crawling over, around, and beneath the older ones." ”

“ Soft, juicy fruits and vegetables can provide both moisture and food. There seems to be a tendency for certain species (Blatta orientalis and Blattella germanica) to become established in the more humid parts of structures, such as basements, around sinks, and in bathrooms. Whether this is a reaction to a preferred humidity or merely a fortuitous aggregation near sources of drinking water and food has never been clearly demonstrated. ”

“ The extent of host selection varies among these parasites; some species will oviposit into the eggs of more than one species of cockroach, but others show some degree of host specificity. Positive selection of specific hosts by certain parasites appears in correlative data from different investigators on pages 235 to 254. There is a small body of data that shows nonacceptance of certain hosts by some of these wasps. For example, Comperia merceti would not parasitize eggs of Blatta orientalis or Periplaneta americana in the laboratory (Lawson, 1954a) . ”

“ The limiting factors that determine whether man-made structures will provide suitable habitats for cockroaches are favorable temperature and availability of water and food. The range of temperatures that man provides for his own comfort and protection fosters the rapid increase of cockroach populations indoors. Gunn (1934, 1935) has demonstrated that the preferred temperature range (zone of indifference) of Blatta orientalis is 20-29° C. The upper limit of the preferred temperature of Blattella germanica and Periplaneta americana is 33° C. (Gunn, 1935) . ”

“ The blatta americana, which is very common in Brazil, where it inhabits human dwellings, is an orthopterous insect, with an elongated, oval, rather flat body, from 12 to 16 lines in length, of a brown-red which becomes paler under the belly. ”

“ This is B. Americana, or kakerlac, a pretty large species with very long antennæ, and a yellowish thorax having a brown border and two spots of the same colour on the disk. All the truly indigenous Blattæ are comparatively of small size and seldom or never occur in such profusion as to occasion much injury or annoyance. Even the depredations of the common B. orientalis are insignificant compared with those of foreign lands, where species of more formidable dimensions are sometimes so abundant and obnoxious as to produce no trifling inconvenience to the inhabitants. ”

“ Next to man’s houses, the blatta, as he is scientifically called, loves his ships; but the variety that is found in vessels, especially in those trading with the East, is a larger, uglier, and in every way more repulsive creature than his English cousin. Once on board—and there is scarce a ship afloat into which he has not smuggled himself—he is there to stay, and short of sinking the vessel, or of fastening down the hatches and suffocating him with the fumes of sulphur, there is no way of getting rid of him. ”

“ It is a large tree, growing to a height of 80 to 100 ft. or more, which occurs in the West Indies, in South America, and is especially abundant in Dutch and British Guiana. The latex which furnishes balata is secreted in the cortex between the bark and wood of the tree. As the latex flows freely the trees are tapped by making incisions in the same fashion as in india-rubber trees, and the balata is obtained by evaporating the milky fluid. Crude balata varies in composition. It usually contains nearly equal proportions of resin and true gutta. ”

“ I left Sonamarg late on a lovely afternoon for a short march through forest-skirted alpine meadows to Baltal, the last camping-ground in Kashmir, a grassy valley at the foot of the Zoji La, the first of three gigantic steps by which the lofty plateaux of Central Asia are attained. On the road a large affluent of the Sind, which tumbles down a pine-hung gorge in broad sheets of foam, has to be crossed. ”

“ The Orientals have never been what we are. However high an opinion of their knowledge we may form from the examination of their Astronomy, we cannot suppose them ever to have possessed that great array of instruments which distinguishes our modern observatories, and which is the product of simultaneous progress in various arts, nor could they have possessed that genius for discovery, which has hitherto seemed to belong exclusively to Europe, and which, supplying the place of time, causes the rapid progress of science and of human intelligence. ”

“ The Oriental region comprises all tropical Asia east of the Indus, with the Malay Islands as far as Java, Borneo, and the Philippines. In its actual land-area it is the smallest region except the Australian; but if we take into account the wide extent of shallow sea connecting Indo-China with the Malay Islands, and which has, doubtless, at no distant epoch, formed an extension of the Asiatic Continent, it will not be much smaller than the Ethiopian region. Here we find all the conditions favourable to the development of a rich and varied fauna. ”

“ Even now, that portion of the Palæarctic region between Western Asia and Japan is, for the most part, a bleak and inhospitable region, abounding in desert plateaus, and with a rigorous climate even in its most favoured districts, and can, therefore, support but a scanty population of snakes, and of such groups of insects as require flowers, forests, or a considerable period of warm summer weather; and it is precisely these which are represented in Japan and North China by tropical forms. ”

“ Sometime after driving the red man across to North America, the expanding Chinese cleared the Andonites from the river valleys of eastern Asia, pushing them north into Siberia and west into Turkestan, where they were soon to come in contact with the superior culture of the Andites.
In Burma and the peninsula of Indo-China the cultures of India and China mixed and blended to produce the successive civilizations of those regions. Here the vanished green race has persisted in larger proportion than anywhere else in the world. ”

“ They do not cut their hair, as all in China are obliged to do since the Tartars conquered the country; and whenever any one comes to Batavia from China, he immediately suffers his hair to grow, as a token of freedom, dressing it with the utmost care; their priests only excepted, whose heads are all close shaven.
The Chinese go always bare headed, carrying an umbrella in their hands to keep off the sun; and they suffer their nails to grow immoderately long, which gives them prodigious dexterity in slight of hand, an art of considerable importance as they use it. ”

“ The most probable conjecture has fixed the cradle of our race in that corner of land which lies westward the steep range of the Beloot Tagh mountains, an off-shoot of the Himalayas, and northward from the high barren land of Cabul. This country, the ancient Bactriana, is the most habitable district to be found anywhere in Central Asia. There the hills stretch out in gentle slopes towards the west, and enclose fertile valleys, whose innumerable streams, fed by the mountains east and south, all go to swell the waters of the Oxus, now called the Jihon. ”

“ This shows that Northern Asia is as old as the Second Race. One may even say that Asia is contemporary with man, since from the very beginnings of human life its Root-Continent, so to speak, already existed, and that part of the world now known as Asia was only cut off from it in a later age, and divided by the glacial waters. ”

“ The number of species common to southern China, Japan and northern Asia is small. The cultivated plants of China are, with a few exceptions, the same as those of India. South China, therefore, seems, botanically, hardly distinct from the great Indian region, into which many Chinese forms penetrate, as before noticed. The flora of north China, which is akin to that of Japan, shows manifest relation to that of the neighbouring American continent, from which many temperate forms extend, reaching to the Himalaya, almost as far as Kashmir. ”

“ Find me the country in Asia where bamboo does not grow, and I’ll vow to you that that country has been an iceberg and in some strange way become detached from its anchorage at the North Pole, drifted down to the southern seas, and after centuries become overgrown with all sorts of green and gay things, and so come to think itself, and to be thought, a part of the Orient. ”

“ In this vast extent of land two distinct centres of influence are prominent—the Indian and the Chinese. Each is of marked individuality, but they differ in this essential point, that while the Chinese element is decidedly restricted in area, being, in fact, more or less confined to China itself and the adjacent islands, the Indian element, on the other hand, extends far beyond continental Asia, and embraces all the Malay islands to their farthest eastward extent, until it becomes overpowered by the Papuan and Australian fauna. ”

“ In Asia a great transverse barrier exists, dividing that continent into a northern and southern portion; and as the lowlands occur on the south and the highlands on the north of the great mountain range, which is situated not far beyond the tropic, an abrupt change of climate is produced; so that a belt of about a hundred miles wide, is all that intervenes between a luxuriant tropical region and an almost arctic waste. Between the northern part of Asia, and Europe, there is no barrier of importance; and it is impossible to separate these regions as regards the main features of animal life. ”

“ This beautiful variety of phasianidae, now common enough in Europe, is very abundant in Western Yün-nan, where its tail-feathers are highly prized for decking pack-animals. They are inserted, several together, in the brow of the bridle, and wave over the animal’s head. Trade is dear to the Chinese heart. I found that, while I was buying, my followers were rapidly disposing, at an immense profit, of a bundle of razors which they had carried all the way from Ch’ung-k’ing. ”

“ We have four European species of Parnassius, only one of which is peculiar to our continent, but the locality where it occurs, the Caucasus, is on the borders of Asia. Almost all the other species are Asiatic, none however range to the south. Its headquarters, and I think its original home, are the mountains of Central Asia. From there it [Pg 266] has spread—some species to the Himalayas, and a few to Europe and North America. But these migrations are not of very recent date. Parnassius no doubt arrived accompanied by a large number of other Central Asiatic mountain insects and plants. ”

“ If Pithecanthropus be really a true hominid, then we already have evidence of his origin in the Asiatic region. Be it as it may, I confidently believe that within a very few years the discovery of indubitable links in man's ancestry will be made in central Asia, in China or northern India. Perhaps to no region of the world does the paleontologist look with more eager expectation for the solution of many profound problems in the phylogenies and migrations of the mammals than to central and eastern Asia. ”

“ As Plato was not the only writer that treated of a world beyond the pillars of Hercules, and as the ocean is still shallow and grows sea-weed all through the tropical part of the Atlantic, it is not wild to imagine that this continent projected, or that there was an island-world on that coast. The Pacific also shows signs of having been a populous island-empire of Malays or Javanese—if not a continent amid the North and South. We know that Lemuria in the Indian Ocean is a dream of scientists ”