AAs the nights get colder and we hug our loved ones tighter, it's nice to remember that humans aren't the only animals that cuddle up because of the weather. Some penguins, for example, huddle together to stay warm, sharing their body heat to stay warm in the Antarctic climate. Now, to the list of animals that love to cuddle in bad weather, you can add a not so pleasant creature – the Madagascar hissing cockroach.
According to new research V Ethologythese cockroaches also like to huddle together – not to conserve body heat in warm Madagascar, but to conserve moisture in dry weather.
Biologist Lindsay Swierk, working with a team of students taking an animal behavior course at Binghamton University, divided 32 adult cockroaches into different groups and varied the relative humidity in their enclosures. When conditions became dry, the two-inch-long cockroaches tended to cluster together, creating a wetter microclimate within the pile.
This behavior has previously been documented in insects, mostly among smaller species and more vulnerable larvae, but new research shows that even relatively large cockroaches lean on each other to avoid dehydration.
Read more: “Acquired tastes of gourmets and cockroaches»
“In general, insects can lose water quite quickly due to their high surface area to volume ratio, and so humidity does affect their ability to retain moisture,” Swierk said in the study. statement. “Our study shows that even larger adult insects, which theoretically may be more tolerant of low humidity than smaller or larval insects, still use aggregation as a flexible behavioral adaptation to reduce the risk of water loss.”
The research also has important environmental implications. Climate change is lengthening Madagascar's dry season, and cockroaches are expected to flock together as a result. The increase in aggregation that occurs in drier conditions can increase cockroach competition and even become a more tempting target for hungry predators.
So hold the cockroaches tight tonight, it's getting dry out there.
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Main image: Wiley Online Library.
