Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, brain Stuff, Lauren vocal bomb here. What if there were no cockroaches? The question sounds like it's straight out of the marketing materials from Paradise. Cockroaches spread bacteria like salmonella, they leave droppings behind everywhere they walk, and they can exacerbate allergies and asthma. All are good reasons to squash them all, but not so fast. Only a few species of roaches out of an estimated five to ten thousand, are commonly
found infesting homes. Most cockroaches live in warm, tropical climates, happily minding their own business and staying out of humans business. Some are even beautiful, no really, and glow in the dark. But if you are still determined to play this game out, then would better take a look at what would happen if they all disappeared? Long story short, it's not good. In tropical forests. Cockroaches feed on decaying wood and leaves,
and all those droppings they leave the hind well. They're filled with organic debris and nutrients, including nitrogen, which are added back into the soil. Nitrogen is essential to the growth of trees, which are essential to forests and our own lives, since we use wood products to shelter both ourselves and the animals that we do actually like. Oh and speaking of those animals that we like, especially small mammals, birds,
and reptiles, they feed on cockroaches. And since other animals feed on these small mammals and reptiles, disrupting even this one small skittering link in the food chain could have a widespread effect on the world around us. So the next time you're tempted to smash a cockroach before it runs under your fridge, consider that it may be helping to refuel a local forest when it isn't hanging around your house. Or I mean, go ahead, but don't wish
death on the whole lot of them worldwide. Don't worry, though, they are in no risk of going extinct anytime soon. Cockroaches have been around since before the dinosaurs. Cockroach fossils show that they've been around for at least three hundred million years. That's some serious staying power. They really are some of the hardiest creatures around, capable of withstanding radiation and huge doses far more than a human could handle,
and going without food for up to a month. So If you do squash one scurrying across your floor, you're in no danger of having doomed these resourceful bugs to extinction. Today's episode was written by Karen Kirkpatrick and produced by Tyler Clang and Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other creepy Crawley topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff works dot com