Dazzling colors. Remote habitats. Gentle parenting. Fantastic genitalia. And yeah, swimming through sewers to surprise you. It’s cockroaches and I promise you will find something to love about them in this chat with cockroach evangelist and Blattodeologist Dr. Dominic Evangelista. Which are the prettiest? Are roaches better at raising kids than you? How do roach scientists feel about the ones in kitchens? How does one catch a cockroach in a dark rainforest? Can roaches pull a Ratatouille and steal our hearts with a casserole? Dominic explains it all. I swear they can be lovable, OKAY?

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Visit Dr. Evangelista’s Roach Brain Lab and follow him on iNaturalist account and Google Scholar

A donation went to Teach for America and Entomologists of Color

Links to things we discussed:

Dominic’s iNaturalist account

Spirit of Health or Goblin Damned? tee

Death of an order: a comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study confirms that termites are eusocial cockroaches

The weight of the clan: Even in insects, social isolation can induce a behavioural syndrome

Collective foraging decision in a gregarious insect

Roach eggs really do look like purses

Emigrating Together but Not Establishing Together: A Cockroach Rides Ants and Leaves

Dispersal of Attaphila fungicola, a symbiotic cockroach of leaf-cutter ants

Zach Phillips, Ph.D.