Ever think about ticks, cockroaches and/or worms? You most likely do not – unless they’re on your pets, you have an infestation, or you’re fishing. Although what do all of these little specimens have in common? These crawlers are the David Blaine of creepy crawlers. How? I’ll explain.
We can begin with ticks. These types of arachnids are sneaky little ones! On those beautiful summer days, when we are outside, ticks will hunt. They leach onto us like some sort of magnetic force. “There are two groups of ticks, sometimes called the hard ticks and so
ft ticks.” Soft ticks are attracted to “birds and bats” more. The majority of us are familiar with the idea that ticks do not die easily. This is true… to a degree. “Hard ticks have a hard shield just behind the mouthparts.” This makes it hard to crush them. People tend to try and crush the head section of the tick. DO NOT DO THIS. It may cause the tick to release any form a disease into your system. In addition, crushing an engorged tick may cause infected blood to be released back into you. Ticks do not swim, but have the ability to be “submerged in water for 2-3 days and seem to survive just fine.” So if you think they come off when you’re in the pool or shower… think again! To remove a tick, locate fine pointed tweezers and pull it straight upward holding onto its head. Never twist the tick because parts of its mouth may stay in your skin. If tweezers are unavailable, “grasp the tick with a piece of tissue or cloth or whatever can be used as a barrier between your fingers and the tick.” Always double check EVERYWHERE when you have been outside all day!
If ticks do not already freak you out… let us move onto cockroaches. This is another crawler that is able to survive some interesting conditions. Roaches have tiny holes in which they are able to breathe through that are located on the sides. In addition, a cockroach “can hold its breath or 40 minutes and can even survive being submerged under water for half an hour.” Are you creeped out yet? No? Well, a roach is able to live over a week without its head! Their “nervous system activity takes place in nerve ganglia located throughout their bodies.”
Remember that rumor you always heard as a kid? Cockroaches are able to survive a nuclear explosion. The MythBusters cast decided to take the challenge! They used “three levels of radioactive metal cobalt 60.” The guys first used “1,000 radon units of cobalt 60 an
d then followed it up with 10,000 and 100,000 rad exposures of separate roach groups.” Radiation will destroy organisms “on a cellular level. Cells are said to be most sensitive to radiation when they’re dividing. Roaches, on the other hand, only molt about once a week at most, which makes radiation’s window of opportunity to attack cells much narrower.” In other words, cockroaches have a slow cell cycle. Therefore, they can handle “extreme radiation exposure.” The MythBusters observed the roaches for 30 days. Results showed the exposure of 1,000 rads did not affect the roaches and about 10% of the 10,000 rad roaches did not die.
Our final crawler, or should we say glider, is the worm. Are worms able to live if cut in ha
lf? If severely slaughtered by a gardening tool, then the answer is no. When a worm is cute behind the clitellum, it has the ability to re-grow the other half of itself (tail). A worm’s tail-end would not be able to grow a new head because there are no vital organs associated with this section. Sometimes a tail will grow a tail and since worms “absorb oxygen from the soil” but will perish eventually due to lack of food. The Washington Post states that worm’s tails are able to regrow regenerate a head. This may or may not be possible depending on the form and type of worm. For example, the planarian flatworm “is able to reform its entire body from slivers just 1/300th of the animal’s original body size.”
I strongly dislike any form of bugs or insects. So if this blog did not creep you out, then you’re very lucky! Contrary to not liking them, I have always been curious about each one of these phenomenons. I hope you all learned just as much as I did, if not more!
Other Sites Used
http://www.rd.com/health/conditions/13-things-ticks-wont-tell-you/
**The cockroach image directed me to a video when I went to the website for the image.**