In the centuries-old war between People And cockroachesman lost one of the greatest battles about forty years ago.

That’s when researchers started to cover the poisoned baits sweetenerssuch as glucose to lure cockroaches who, like humans unable to resist sugar, would willingly come over and eat what killed them.

The discovery of these baits has “revolutionized insect control,” says Coby Schull, an entomologist at North Carolina State University.

This triumph of man in the agony of killing cockroaches did not last long.

Soon their evolutionary fate which theoretically makes them resistant even to radioactivity.

Although many were poisoned by their irresistible cravings for sugar, some were born with an unusual disease. set of genetic mutations this redefined the sense of taste and, unlike most sugar addicts, they were not tempted by sugary baits and as a result they lived long enough to be able to pass these mutations on to their offspring.

Cockroaches didn’t become immune to insecticides, they just showed off. aversion to bait with glucose. A disgust that was genetically developed and passed down from generation to generation.

In fact, while the initial discovery of resistance to these new revolutionary baits was confirmed in the US, cockroaches that neglect glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, and more have been found in other parts of the world, even in Russia, apparently evolving independently. . , according to Sal.

The cockroaches’ aversion to the sweet taste came at a heavy price. Meat, nuts and complex starchy foods still attract them. However, as Ayako Wanda-Katsumata, an entomologist at North Carolina State University, points out, anything that contains pure sugar (or its substitute) or quickly breaks down into it is for mutant cockroaches. terribly bitter.

This revulsion had repercussions in reproductive process cockroaches. Because males secrete an oily, sweet liquid (“chemically similar to chocolate,” Wanda-Katsumata explains) from a gland on their back to attract potential mates, many females find it bitter, causing them to leave before the reproductive process. completed. The female cockroach “learns that the courtship process is not good because of the bitter taste,” says Wanda-Katsumata, adding that it takes weeks before the female decides to try again – if she chooses.

Source: Atlantic.