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Adapted from YouTube screenshot.
Sympathy for a cockroach is not something you'll encounter, but when the stakes include being stuck in the head by an Emerald wasp and being turned into an egg-carrying zombie, that's a fate we would not wish on any creature. Researchers at Vanderbilt University recently found their way to the targets of their body-jacking nefarious, they are not completely defenseless to stop it. During recorded attacks, some cockroaches went full Jean-Claude Van Damme circa 1989 and kicked the wasps in their heads.
"The cockroach has a following of what it can do to put off the zombie-makers, and this starts with what I call the 'on hold' position, like in fencing," said biologist Ken Catania. "That allows the roach to move its anatomy towards the wasp so that it can be tracked and attacked at the head of the body, and that is one of the most efficient deterrents. A zombie is coming after them. " The strategy worked 63 percent of the time it was used by adult cockroaches. Young roaches were not so lucky.
Kicking was not the only defensive maneuver that the cockroaches used to stay alive. "Cockroaches at the abdomen of wasps delivering the brain sting," Catania wrote in the published paper titled "How Not to Be Turned into a Zombie." Most people have witnessed the resilience of cockroaches when they have tried and failed to kill one, but who knew that the indestructible little insects were also masters of tae kwon do and body biting? Maybe they are a little more respected than we have shown them over the centuries … or maybe we need to get started.
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