- A cockroach can hold its breath for 40 minutes.
- Cockroaches spend 75% of their time resting.
- The world’s largest roach (which lives in South America) is six inches long with a one-foot wingspan.
- A cockroach can live a week without its head. The roach only dies because without a mouth, it can’t drink water and dies of thirst.
- Cockroaches can live without food for one month, but will only survive a week without water.
- Cockroaches can run up to three miles in an hour.
- Young cockroaches need only a crack as thin as a dime (about .5mm wide) to crawl into. Adult males can squeeze into a space of 1.6mm or the thickness of a quarter. Pregnant females need the most space to hide: 4.5 mm or a space as tall as two stacked nickels.
- The American cockroach has shown a marked attraction to alcoholic beverages, especially beer.
- A one-day-old baby cockroach, which is about the size of a speck of dust, can run almost as fast as its parents.
- The Madagascan Hissing Cockroach is one of the few insects who give birth to live young, rather than laying eggs.
- The German cockroach is not really German. In fact, the Germans call it the Prussian cockroach. It is thought to have originated in Southern Asia.
- Most cockroach species live in the tropics but they can make their home all over the world, including the North and South Poles.
- 1 in 4 people are sensitive to cockroaches.
