Summers in Florida are a bitch. The stifling wet-heat; The relentless burning sun, punctuated by thunderstorms and rain and rain and rain. But the most offensive part of summer is the increase of those creepy, lurking, giant-ass cockroaches.
Palmetto bugs, or the American cockroach, or Periplaneta Americana — because they get all kinds of fancy names — thrive in Florida summers. They love the damp conditions; love eating moist decaying wood (and almost anything else) but mostly, they love to taunt us, because they know that as a species, they will outlive us all.
While scientists say we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction in our planet’s history, and estimate we are losing various creatures at a rate of between 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, the American cockroach is in no danger.
In a dismal and ironic twist of evolution, these turd-hued jackals got this thing on lock.
They’ve been around since the Carboniferous Era, which was just a short 359 million years ago. All the while, palmetto bugs have casually lounged, all-cool, like a Parisian smoking a cigarette, watching as species after species has died out.
Even today, while beloved animals like mountain gorillas, Bengal tigers and Sumatran elephants linger on the World Wildlife Fund’s critically endangered list, American cockroaches languidly blow smoke rings, assured in their superiority.
Surely everyone who lives in Florida has had a tangle with a big-ol’ palmetto bug. We know these jokers are some bad mama-jamas. And during those detestable games of cat-and-mouse, when we’re trying to kill them and they’re being cunningly elusive, admit it — we can’t help but think they know what’s up.
It’s true that they do have some intelligence. As we learned in Orange is the New Black, these giant roaches are trainable. In an article written for the Miami News in 1984, writer John Keasler reported that at the end of the 19th century, a man who called himself Palmetto Pete used American cockroaches in his Amazing Palmetto Bug Circus. Keasler claimed the bugs are capable of “marching in formation, [doing] acrobatics, and leap-frog dancing to flute music.”
Besides being teachable, a friend of mine said he heard you can’t even kill these roaches in a microwave. He tried it, and the thing just ran around on the rotating plate all like, “Yeah bitch. What now?”
Plus, have we all not ‘killed’ a palmetto bug, then went back to throw it away only to find it gone, leaving us in disgusted awe of its Wolverine-like regenerative powers.
All this in mind, it’s hard to begrudge these creeps a little respect. I’ll still dutifully kill every palmetto bug that has the balls to come into my house, for the thought of them crawling on my face at night while I sleep deems their death a necessity. But they are a worthy adversary. A worthy adversary indeed.
This article appears in Jul 30 – Aug 5, 2015.