How a cockroach put 30 people out of work

For the viewers of Turkmenistan's popular nightly news program, Vatan, it was another routine bulletin. But as the newsreader began the 9pm broadcast, viewers across the central Asian country spotted something unusual crawling across the studio table: a large brown cockroach.

The cockroach managed to complete a whole lap of the desk, apparently undetected, before disappearing. The program, complete with cockroach, was repeated at 11pm that night.

Turkmenistan's president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, was so upset when outraged viewers complained to the station that he fired 30 workers from the main state TV channel.

Source: Guardian

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Madagascar hissing cockroaches

The Bohart Museum of Entomology on the UC Davis campus, houses three of the world’s largest cockroaches: the Death Head (Blaberus cranifer), collected from a bat roost in Panama; Peppered or Peruvian Cockroach (Archimandrita tesselata) from Peru; and Madagascar hissing cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) from Madagascar.

Bohart Museum scientists have maintained terrariums of Madagascar hissing cockroaches for some 30 years. At any given time, the museum has hundreds of them. It’s the most popular display among the kids, because of three reasons: the hissing sound they make, their size and their appearance.

More about cockroaches from the Smithsonian National Zoo.

Photo: Kathy Keatley Garvey