As the largest city in the United States, New York City seems to be full of all sorts of urban wildlife! This week, we bring you the smoking cockroach. If your pesticides won’t kill it, neither will smoking cigarettes.
Tired: pizza rat
Wired: cigarette cockroach pic.twitter.com/HPxBLkWstX— Tom Kretchmar (@tkretchmar) October 18, 2019
Urban birds are known to incorporate cigarette butts into their nests, which may function as an ectoparasite repellent. Furthermore, experimental manipulation has shown that house sparrows are more likely to increase fibers from cigarette butts in their nests when nest parasites are abundant. However, Monserrat Suárez-Rodríguez found that while the chemicals in cigarette butts provide short-term benefits by reducing parasites, the chemicals may also lead to genotoxicity (the damaging of DNA by chemicals).
It is unclear why the cockroach in this video was carrying the cigarette butt, but perhaps the chemicals that prevent ectoparasites in birds also prevent ectoparasites in cockroaches (yes, cockroaches can get ectoparasites too!) but further research is needed. Now, who is going to investigate?
Do you have a photo or video of an urban species doing something unusual? What about a rare plant or animal that you were surprised to find in a city? If so, let Lindsay know or Tweet at us and you could be featured as a future observation of the week!
I am interested in urban ecology and evolution. Urbanization can have drastic impacts on local ecosystems, both negative and positive, and creates a new environment for organisms to experience. To understand the impacts that urbanization plays on organisms, I look through the lense of population genetics and molecular evolution.
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