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Science|How the Cockroach Took Over the World
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Trilobites
HOW THE COCKROACH TOOK OVER THE WORLD
A genetic analysis of the German cockroach explained its rise in southern Asia
millenniums ago, and how it eventually turned up in your kitchen.
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A genomic analysis of 281 cockroaches collected from 17 countries around the
world suggests that Blattella germanica, the German cockroach, originated in
India or Myanmar around 2,100 years ago.Credit...Erik Karits/Alamy
By Sofia Quaglia
May 20, 2024, 3:00 p.m. ET
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sent to your inbox.
They come out of hiding at night and scuttle across the house in search of
starchy crumbs on the floor, a sticky sugary stain on the counter and sometimes
even a nibble of toothpaste or soap.
Cockroaches.
Yet out of the 4,500 species of cockroaches, the German cockroach is probably
the primary source of your frustration. It has overpowered other cockroach
species and is considered the world’s most prevalent indoor pest. How exactly
this wild insect became our personal problem — so well-adapted to living in
places with humans it’s barely found in nature — has eluded scientists for some
time.
A new study describes the scavenger’s origin story, and reveals the genetic
variations that make the insect “different from other cockroaches,” said Qian
Tang, an evolutionary biologist now at Harvard University and an author of the
study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“And then that helps us find a solution to control them.”
The German cockroach was given its name in the late 1700s in Central Europe.
Scientists later concluded that the species, Blattella germanica, originated in
northeastern Africa.
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But there is another species, the Asian cockroach, or Blattella asahinai, that
scientists saw as a good candidate for B. germanica’s ancestor. It looks almost
identical to the German cockroach, although it has distinctive traits, like an
attraction to light, an ability to live outdoors and the power of flight. As
technology advanced, genetic analyses made the case that B. germanica shared
more with B. asahinai than just looks.
Dr. Tang was itching to get to the bottom of B. germanica’s genealogical tree,
so his team sourced DNA from 281 German cockroaches from 17 countries to study
their genetic differences. Then they traced the pest’s journey across the
planet, from where it first evolved until it crawled into your kitchen.
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