I Know How Cockroach Blood Tastes.
People March 23rd, 2008
This is part of a series of posts (Cockroach Blood):
- I Know How Cockroach Blood Tastes.
- So How Does Cockroach Blood Taste?
Q31: Pam Pollister writes: What color is the blood of a cockroach?
A: Pam, The long answer: Cockroach blood is not red because they do not use hemoglobin to carry oxygen. In fact their bloodstream is not used to carry oxygen either. They use a system of pipes called tracheae to bring the oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from their tissues.As a result other factors determine the blood color. Male cockroaches have relatively colorless blood. Larval females have colorless blood. Only adult females which are producing eggs have a slightly orange blood because of the protein vitellogenin which is made in the cockroach liver (its fat body) and transported through the blood to the ovary. This protein like chicken yolk is orange because it carries a carotenoid, which is a vitamin A like molecule needed by embryos to develop normally.
The short answer: Cockroach female adult blood is occasionally orange. All other cockroach blood is colorless.1
Insect blood is actually called hemolymph, or haemolymph for those of you who are not American. But I digress. Let’s back up a little bit.
I have known my friend Steve the longest of any of the friends that I currently have. We haven’t heard each other’s voices in at least 10 years–I’m hoping that he’ll correct me if I’m wrong. The black magic of facebook has kept us connected though.
Our friendship started in high school. Every one of his friends, except for me, were weird and strange and not very popular. He made fun of me, influenced me to attend a university that almost caused me to commit suicide, and gave me shit for talking too much in class. He’s much brighter than I. He’s been on a televised game show and he’s shaken hands with a former prime minister of Canada (Pierre E. Trudeau). He was my lab partner in BIO110.
BIO110 was one of those first-year courses at the University of Toronto that was meant to weed out the people that wanted to go to med school but weren’t academically capable. The sheer volume of information that we had to regurgitate for that course was unbelievable. If I had entertained thoughts about medical school, they were dramatically diminished after I finished this course. The remainder of any potential ideas for medical school were blasted away after organic chemistry in second year. I’m lucky that my life’s path took me to dentistry — which I do immensely enjoy. Hey, if it weren’t for dentistry, I wouldn’t have met that hormonal person who can’t speak english but still likes to comment on my blog. If it weren’t for dentistry, I wouldn’t have met my wife. But I digress yet again.
As I was finishing my degree I really didn’t know what I wanted to spend my life doing so I majored in physiology, got a minor in economics, and took enough courses that I could have received minors in geology and computer science. Computer science is where I met my other buddy Rudy, whose blog you might peruse every so often. We used to play netrek and otherwise waste time that should have been used for studying. Looking back, I was in school for oh so long. My bachelor’s degree took me 5 years, my dental degree 4, my internship 1, my specialisation 2. Good thing Steve and I skipped a year in high school. Actually he might have skipped 2 years, but I can’t remember that far back too well. I’m digressing again.
In BIO110, Steve and I learned about mushrooms, arachnids, women, and cockroaches. Cockroaches are invertebrates. Women are vertebrates and there was this one polish girl that I specifically attended class to check out. She smelled kind of strange, but I really, really liked her–even after I found out that she was engaged.
It is of the experiment in BIO110 in which we learned about cockroach hemolymph (haemolymph if you’re not from the States) that I draw your attention. In my undergraduate university days I became more intimate with a cockroach than I ever thought possible…
Coming Soon: Carcinogenic Concoctions.
Footnotes:
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 am
i’m surprised u bash the american guy so much, whose english is quite good, i’m sure (maybe not in a canadian way but hey, it the tiny little Switzerland, they’ve got over 100 different dialects and can’t understand each other, so they got to speak German to each other!) and i’m slowly starting to feel embarraced commenting on ur blog (if you think the american guy can’t speak english, where does that leave me?! lol)
anyways, this about the cockroaches was quite interesting. i learn a lot from you, thanks
Laney’s last blog post..Renovations
March 23rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
A little trivia which I can share with my kids if they happen to ask about cockroaches.
Melo’s last blog post..EntreFrame: A Second Look At Entrecard Widgetsurf
March 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Laney: The American guy is a girl and she’s very hormonal right now, so she needs to be put in her place. Don’t worry your english is better.
Melo: When I was growing up in Guyana, the cockroaches there would not die. You stepped on them, you smacked them with a broom…some green stuff leaked out, but then they ran away. Hopefully I won’t scare your kids too much!
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
lol um… I’m going to nickname this post ‘tangent’ because it ended in a completely different place that I thought it would take me. But don’t be mistaken, I love this story!
fragileheart’s last blog post..Happy Easter!
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Okay, now that’s creepy. Imagine, cockroaches that don’t die. O_o We must learn the secret of immortality from them.
Melo’s last blog post..First In Action’s Wordpress Theme
March 24th, 2008 at 6:36 am
fragile: Where were you thinking I was going to go with it?
Melo: And apparently they are very clean creatures…
March 24th, 2008 at 8:29 am
oh my GOD, you are such a tease. you are actually going to make me wait for the second part of that story? the added bonus was when i sat down to read your blog with my bowl of cereal and came face to face with a big ole’ cockroach. man, you are evil. but i eagerly await part 2.
laney, your friend periapex is the one who has commented on how we americans cannot spell, when in fact it is canadians who cannot spell (this was prompted by numerous games of facebook scrabble, for which he has repeatedly whipped my ass, but vengence is mine!!!) i’m sure you know how canadians have to add the letter “u” to everything to try to be all fancy and british. you see, we defeated the british at the end of the 18th century and claimed our independence from colonization, something which took a certain little country up north several hundred years later to do. hence, i refuse to speak, or spell, the imperial tongue. i think my *english* is pretty darn good. know what, i think i’m going to change my name on this thing!
and i’m not just busting periapex’s chops because i’m hormonal. i do it all the time
March 24th, 2008 at 8:47 am
When it comes to spelling, Canadians are generally confused because of their english background, but proximity to the States. You’ll notice that sometimes I use the extra U’s, sometimes I’ll use Z’s instead of S’s, and sometimes I just spell completely wrong. There are also some minor grammatical differences between imperial spelling and American.
March 24th, 2008 at 10:45 am
dear person who can’t speak the imperial language, periapex can be quite evil at times, i agree, and buggy (here’s a word for ya) a.k.a. he bugs people all the time! but he’s a sweetheart and we love him, no?! so you go girl (sorry i was being sexist earlier and assuming you were male) and speak/spell your way and don’t pay attention to peri! english is my second language so i can’t fight back, but i’m kicking his but in Facebook Scabulous too, he, he!
anyways, good luck with your hormonal situation (if it is what i think it is). just take it all out on peri! he likes it!
Laney’s last blog post..Renovations
March 24th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I don’t like it, I get enough of it at home. Thanks very much though.
And you are kicking my butt in Scrabulous. I’ve gotten stuck with all the vowels though. Soon you won’t be able to make anymore words. Just like me.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
To Periapex, Laney and The person who can’t speak the imperial language,
It must be very nice not having to work on a monday unlike some poor unfortunate wives!!!!
March 24th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
if it makes you feel any better calculus, i have to work this saturday ;-(
laney, no offense taken whatsoever. and it’s not sexist in any way, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. of course it’s only natural to assume that a person who can’t speak english “properly” couldn’t possibly be a female
and thanks for the congrats!
March 25th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
calculus: as per our phone conversation last sunday about Europe and how laid back it is, everyone has Easter monday off here. but i did think of you (saw ur Facebook status update) and sympathise with you.
person: you’re frigging hilarious! love reading your comments!
Laney’s last blog post..Renovations
April 10th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
[...] Ghost is my cockroach friend. If you’ve read my posts about him you’ll know what a good people-user he is. He’s smart but doesn’t have many [...]