Cockroaches glow to fool enemies

Biologists have discovered a glowing insect. It is a fluorescent cockroach, using its light to fool carnivorous insects.

>>>What would life be without . cockroaches?

This new insect named scientifically Lucihormetica luckae lives in tropical South America. One of its representatives has been found since 1939 in Ecuador but has not been meticulously described and understood about them.

Newly discovered images of cockroach species.

The newly discovered cockroach species lives in the area where the crater was once and studied thoroughly on the fluorescent electronic microscope. The light they emit is due to biochemical reactions that occur in their bodies. It is a rare phenomenon only in a small group of insects, some soil worms and especially the fireflies.

Scientists believe that cockroaches mimic the glowing way of neighbors living in tropical forests is the scientific beetle Pyrophorus , which uses the toxin secreted as a weapon against the enemy. They emit light like warning signs of meat-eating insects not coming close.

Cockroaches do not have venom as a weapon, must impersonate a neighbor who glows with the same color and flashes at the same frequency, taking advantage of the reputation of beetles to scare predators.

In the world of insects most of them have not been carefully described. More than one million species are now known and an estimated 2 million species have yet to be discovered. Recently, entomologists have found a new species, the yellow-eyed wasp, but it has only recently been photographed without specific research conditions.

The work is published in the journal Naturwissenschaften, and summarized on the ScienceNow website.