The use of glucose-based pesticides has hit the sex life of cockroaches living in human dwellings. At first, insects began to avoid sweets, which made it more difficult for them to reproduce. Now men have complicated the composition of their “wedding gifts” and become more effective in sex, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B .
Red cockroaches, or Prussians, are the most common type of cockroaches in the world, they live in human dwellings, and therefore chemical manufacturers have been developing new means of combating these insects for decades. Glucose is the basis of many poisons, this is due to the love of cockroaches for sweets and the peculiarities of their mating behavior.
Scientists have long known that to attract females, male cockroaches present them with a “wedding gift” – they secrete a delicious mixture of proteins, fats and maltose (malt sugar) under their wings. The female eats this gift, and while he is nearby, the male mates with her for about 90 minutes.
Thirty years ago, it was noticed that some cockroaches had acquired a mutation that makes them averse to glucose. This allowed the mutants to avoid being poisoned by poisons, but also complicated their reproduction – the females, as soon as their saliva transformed maltose into glucose, fled before the male had time to reach their genitals.
A new study published by researchers at North Carolina State University shows that glucose-hungry men have found a way to avoid pushing women away. They have acquired a new mutation that causes them to produce not maltose, but a more complex trisaccharide, maltotriose, in their “wedding gift”. This substance also attracts females and breaks down in the presence of saliva into glucose much longer than maltose.
The mutation has also made males more agile – now they try to start mating an average of 2.2 seconds after the female has eaten the gift – twice as fast as males without the new mutation. According to scientists, the discovery of a new mutation will make it possible to develop more effective means of dealing with cockroaches.
