Every Cockroach Has A Unique Personality

Every cockroach is a scavenger and has a unique personality, according to new research at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. You may hate these creepy-crawlies, yet you can appreciate that while some are shy, others are brass and bold!

Issac Planas, the study's lead researcher and PhD student at Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), showed that cockroaches are good test subjects mainly because of the decision-making skills and intensive research on their behaviour, according to immortal.

Planas has been quoted as saying that though they are simple, they "make complex decisions". Even though they have very little information or interactions, just knowing whether they have partners or not can then trigger them into making some complex decisions.

Now the American cockroach, or Periplaneta Americana has an American personality, especially when it faces the light. The test has been conducted within three months, in which 16 cockroaches were minutely probed. The roaches were let loose into a round arena under a bright light, in which there were two round shelters inside. They gave the insects shelter.

Unlike other insects such as ants and termites, many of the cockroaches exhibit dynamic character traits, such as bravery and sociability, according to reuters.

Once inside the arena, the cockroaches were not tampered with for three hours, after which their areas were shot with cameras and conveyed through small chips on their backs. The scientists wanted to find out whether they set out into the light or continued to hide in the dark.

The cockroaches would quickly assemble within the shelters according to different timings. The lead researcher said that whatever one roach decided might influence the others in the crowd. Hence, with one roach coming into the shelter, the whole team may get motivated to follow the leader, reducing the time taken for the group to reach the point.

There is no social hierarchy among the cockroaches. They are just "a group of equal individuals that reach a choice," according to Planas. Hence, while some animals such as sheep, bats, monkeys, fish or birds form groups that reach a conclusion with mutual help, some cockroaches also follow the same pattern.

Although the decisions of one cockroach might influence that of the others in the pack, Planas is confident they're still ultimately responsible for their own choices. "And even though the cockroaches have individual personalities, they still exhibit a collective personality at the meta-scale," says Planas to io9.

New research shows that the differing personalities of the roaches might explain how they adapt to their surroundings, even as the pluckier of the lot move into new environments, while others just wait, seeing if the environment is safe or not.

One graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered two new species of peacock spiders in Queensland, Australia.