A cluster of cockroaches near their nest entrance in Rio Bigal, Ecuador Paul Bertner in Hinkelman et al. 2020
Cockroaches can team up. A South American species is the first cockroach known to live in group nests with workers and a queen, like honeybees or leaf-cutter ants.
“All cockroaches are solitary,” says Peter Vršanský at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava – or so everyone thought. “It’s unbelievable. It’s like discovering ants as a group.”
Some animals, such as honeybees, are eusocial: not only do they live in large groups and work together to tend the young,…
