Late last year, I wrote a blog describing an experiment in which rats demonstrated the selfless behavior typical of empathy. If these vilified rodents can exhibit the capacity to understand and feel the emotions experienced by their fellow rats, we humans have little excuse. Judging from your reaction, I touched a nerve.
We can also learn something from the hated cockroach. In The Cockroach Papers, Richard Schwied makes a pretty good case that cockroaches are “one of the pinnacles of evolution on this planet.” While humans are resistant to change, roaches should be admired for their ability to adapt to almost any environment.
How adaptive are cockroaches?
Cockroaches have been found in the arctic cold of Alaska, the jungle heat of Costa Rica, and the arid desert of Kenya. Roaches can survive for more than a month without food and more than two weeks without food or water. They will eat almost anything they can find including feces, hair, paper, and skin – even other cockroaches. Amusingly, one of the few things they will not eat is cucumbers.
While they may not appear evolved to us humans, cockroaches have two brains. One is inside their skulls while the second is in the back near their abdomen. Cockroaches have sex, enjoy the company of other cockroaches, and exhibit the signs of male aggressions.
Still not convinced?
According to one study, cockroaches govern themselves by a simple democracy where each insect has equal standing and the entire group weighs in before making decisions that affect the group. In the experiment 50 cockroaches were placed in a dish that had three shelters with room for 40 insects each. The roaches organized themselves with 25 in each of two shelters, leaving the third one empty. When the capacity of the shelters was increased to more than 50, all of the cockroaches stayed in a single shelter.
As one of the scientists said:
Cockroaches are gregarious insects (that) benefit from living in groups. It increases their reproductive opportunities, (promotes) sharing of resources like shelter or food, prevents desiccation by aggregating more in dry environments, etc. So what we show is that these behavioral models allow them to optimize group size.
Cooperation comes naturally to cockroaches. Can we say the same for humans?