Cockroaches use some kung fu to protect themselves from zombie wasp attacks | MNN

We see so rarely articles touting the reasons why we should enjoy cockroaches.

Most of the time, we are obsessed with how to get rid of it.

Of course, cockroaches are not bees. Or even ants. But that does not mean we can not learn a thing or two from them.

Like, for example, how to successfully repel a zombie attack.

While humans still have to deal with a real zombie outbreak – apart from isolated events in the local mall around Christmas – cockroaches have long been fighting zombification.

That would be due to a creature that we will never write, never an appreciation: the emerald gem wasp, or simply the jewel wasp for short.

But do not be deceived. These critters are not gems.

Although it is considerably smaller than the American cockroach, a happy wasp is able to make short course for the roach, thanks to the formidable "neurotoxic cocktail" that it uses.

With Halloween barely in the rearview mirror and many of us suffering without a doubt from a horrendous fatigue, we will not go into the macabre details here.

We spare you the terrifying sequence that sees a wasp plunge his sting directly into the roach's brain. And we will not dwell on how the toxin deprives the cockroach of its ability to move alone …

No, let's get to the right things.

A new study suggests that cockroaches may have found a way out of hell. They use a good kung fu to the old.

Blow as your life depends on it

Indeed, according to the study published this week in the journal Brain, Behavior and Evolution, roaches are like boots as you would if someone was trying to turn you into a zombie.

The researchers noted that the kicks were so violent that the wasp's head could fall.

(And you never thought you were going to scream for a cockroach.)

But most of the time, these quick and hard kicks are enough to convince the wasp to seek an easier candidate to become a slave to Satan.

The joyful wasp actually delivers two bites that seal the roach's spell: one paralyzes it and the other, the brain borer, makes it a zombie.

Of course, it is this first step that must be avoided. For the study, Ken Catania of Vanderbilt University observed about 55 clashes between wasps and roaches, each slowing to about 1,000 frames per second.

About half of the roaches fell instantly on the wasps. The other half, however, was giving very powerful and powerful kicks directly to the proverb melon of the wasp.

These kicks – no less than legs loaded with picks – sent the attacker "sneaking into the walls of the filming room," wrote Catania.

From time to time, the heads turned even. But it's not all these feisty cockroaches have done. Some simply avoided the diving bomb. Even when they were caught in the clutches of the wasp, a roach used a "stiff-arm" defense to restrain the sting. And finally, some desperate miseries bit the wasp in the belly just as he stuck the sting into his brain.

So yes, we have a thing or two that we can learn from roaches. If you ever find yourself in the clutches of a zombie, you have to fight and even bite as there was no tomorrow. Or at least not a tomorrow in which you want to live.

In relation with MNN:

Cockroaches use some kung fu to protect themselves from zombie wasp attacks

Some cockroaches hit and dodge and even sting their aggressor against zombification. (And can you blame them?)