Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumCockroaches are becoming immune to insecticides.
If it's not the heat death of the Earth that consumes us; if we are not snuffed out by blight, famine and the volatile hubris of mankind, it's only a matter of time before the cockroaches rise up and conquer us all. They are growing stronger.
They are keen to our defenses and devour them, snickering all the while at our impotent pest control burlesque. If things continue down this dark path the exterminated, in time, will become the exterminators.
This fatalistic vision is brought to you by the very disturbing news that cockroaches have apparently begun to develop a cross-resistance to powerful insecticides.
Scientists from Purdue exposed German cockroaches to different insecticides, and found that the cockroach populations not only developed a resistance to the insecticide they were exposed to, but also picked up resistances to other insecticides.
The super-immune insects can then pass their resistance on to their offspring, making it only a matter of time before a given population becomes, essentially, insecticide-proof.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/us/cockroaches-resistant-super-bug-insecticide-trnd/index.html?fbclid=IwAR1He8-qCDhhNBYarxRi7fs1leXKCVUj9W8ofw62RN4YcHlfKhPm-iPoSKs
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)(someone had to lol) ...
Thyla
(791 posts)DBoon
(22,397 posts)... and Keith Richard
Hermit-The-Prog
(33,414 posts)Every spider killed by insecticides (or any other stupid poison) allows a horde of cockroaches to survive. Poisoning all the predators of "bad" bugs just makes sure you never run out of the bugs you want to get rid of.
In a bad year, I find 2 cockroaches in the house in the spring. No poisons in over 40 years.
dameatball
(7,399 posts)Hermit-The-Prog
(33,414 posts)I have lizards, skinks and spiders in my garage that I can't even identify. Toads and treefrogs sometimes come in at night when I have a light on. There's even a little brown bat in the loft. Don't know how that one stands the heat.
Duppers
(28,127 posts)I love my many skinks, big and tiny, with their shinny skins reflecting those beautiful iridescent colors in sunlight. And now, my big Lab knows they're "special" and not to anger me by going after them.
😁
Pisces
(5,602 posts)Duppers
(28,127 posts)With ants when they become overwhelming as they sometimes do when they've found pet food droppings.
However spiders amaze me and I normally and carefully jar and release them outside.