Dr. Dominic Evangelista

Cockroaches have a leathery egg case.

So whereas mantises lay their eggs in this sort of like foamy egg case on plant matter,

Cockroaches create this like little leathery, looks like a purse that they stick their eggs into.

So that's one defining feature of cockroaches.

Another one is less obvious.

They have this endosymbiotic bacteria that lives inside of their fat cells.

And there's some other sort of less well-defined characters that you can use to identify a cockroach.

Like cockroaches are flat.

They're kind of oval shaped.

They have a shield-like thing that covers their head.

A lot of people think it is their head, but actually the head is underneath this shield-like thing at the front of their bodies.

Yeah, an awning.

It's a good way to put it.

Circe.

I say Circe.

Yeah, so Circe are pretty big in cockroaches.

I think most insects have them, but they're

smaller and a lot of other insects, whereas in cockroaches, they're quite large.

As far as I know, they are sensory organs and they may also produce or be involved in like pheromone or hormonal production.

Yeah, that's a great question.