The Secret of My Success

Hello! Wait! Don’t run away. Yes, I know I am a cockroach. SO, what’s wrong with that? You are speaking to the most successful species on the planet, you know! We’ve been around for 350 million years! Survived five mass extinctions! Dinosaurs, gone. Trilobites, gone. Dodos, gone.

But WE’RE STILL HERE. 

So what’s the secret of our success? Be small! Run fast! Eat anything! Lay lots of eggs! Let me show you how it’s done.

It all started a long, long time ago. The venerable family of Roach has been crawling around since at least the Devonian.

By the Carboniferous era, half the insects on earth were roaches! Some people call the Carboniferous the Age of Coal, but around here it’s known as the Age of Roaches.

Sure, we’ve had plenty of enemies. If you’re small and full of protein, everything wants to eat you. Fish! Amphibians! Reptiles! Mammals! And don’t even talk to me about birds.

So what did we do? We got quick, is what. We learned to hide, is what. Today’s lean, mean, turbo roach can squeeze so flat, we can fit through a slot no bigger than a dime. And we’re virtually uncrushable! Really! I dare you, try it.

Over the last 350 million years, we’ve had plenty of time to perfect our amazing design.

And we never pass up a meal! What do we eat? What have you got? Rotting leaves, garbage, glue, paper, leather, insulation, corks, poop...and if you like to eat dead things and poop, I tell you, the world is your refrigerator! Just don’t offer me a cucumber. Blech.

We’ve had to share the earth with all kinds of weird-looking creatures. None as weird as you, though. I mean, where’s your exoskeleton? Where are your scales, your stingers, your beaks? Honestly, I don’t know how you manage. But however odd the animals look, they all leave little packages of food around, just for us.

Ice ages came and went. Dinosaurs went extinct. Then the mammoths. But roaches, we just kept going.

Once humans came along, roaches went everywhere humans went. In ships, on planes, in camel packs across the desert. Roach road trip!

We even tagged along to space! Like Uncle Anton. He hid on board the Apollo XII capsule — he was so mad when they just came right back to earth.

You can’t have too many roaches, I say. Now there are 4,000 species of us: Asian, American, German, smokybrown, Madagascar hissing cockroaches...I hope you get to meet them all someday.