The Anatomy of 5 Common Household Pests

Pests, no matter how much you hate to admit it, are all too familiar to you. Your household pests are too familiar that you already know what your roaches’ time in is at night, or your ants’ favourite among your food. You know what blood type your mosquitoes must have by now—of course, you share it with them— and you now know why there’s so many of them.

By now you should also have the complete contact details of your most reliable pest control services. Everything about the pest world you already know that you dearly feel as if you majored it in college. Like any student, you wish you could just graduate already!

But answer this: do you know the workings under your pests’ skins (or, rather, exoskeletons)? When you think you know your pests, that may only be less than skin/exoskeleton deep. So let’s see, shall we…

Rats

There are pests that are too cute to be called pests, and some rats can be and are kept as pets. However, the ones in your home are not so welcome nor friendly. And at times, it’s even bigger than your kitty. You might find it funny to see your rat having dumbo ears—yes, they’re actually called such—but the rats with these ears are actually the friendliest.

Now why are you still laughing? Don’t you dare; they will bite! With four long sharp incisors along their molars, they have the power and the means to chop your hand off! Or maybe just your finger, but it’s really not up to you; it depends on their cravings.

Termites

Right or wrong: termites are mostly related to cockroaches than to ants?

The answer is: right. And you’re wrong to think that it isn’t. Just by looking at their bodies, you’ll actually get to see what we mean. Now what else don’t you know about termites?

There is that their body parts can simply be enumerated as the antennae, the head, the thorax, the legs, and the abdomen. Notable about them are their mandibles, which for soldiers are bigger than the other members of the colony, even the king and queen.

Fun fact about their abdomen: some of their kind store bacteria and protozoans in their hindgut, which is a part of their digestive system, that does the digesting of the enzyme cellulose for them. We don’t digest cellulose either. These microorganisms may be neat to have, don’t you think?

Cockroaches

Periplaneta Americana Body parts: antennae, head, thorax, legs, and abdomen—familiar? Didn’t we tell you so?

Roaches are ever special in the world of pests. They can actually be considered the action stars of Pestywood, simply by their anatomy. See, although they have a brain, much of their thinking actually happens in the nerve ganglia, which is located—get this—all over their bodies. So you can say that roaches are creepy crawling brains that live in our filth and spread diseases. Man, and you haven’t bowed down to them yet.

If you still have this itching feeling to grab your slipper and just swat at roaches like that smartphone app, you may be successful at the right time. Roaches, if you don’t know, molt. And this means that they shed their exoskeleton, which is much like snakes, leaving them fragile for some time. And this happens quite a few times in their lives, too, so if you’ve missed once, you have more moments to try again—brain squiiiiiiiiish!

Ants

Ants are interesting. They work together in a colony, and you can really tell that they love food by the way their body is formed. See, they have a mouth, just like any feeding animal, then close to that they have a food pouch, next comes a food passage, and—brace yourself—a second stomach. It’s surprising how they’re able to keep those slim waists, isn’t it?

But Mother Nature has her functional answer for this. See, ants have to make their way through elaborate tunnels and holes under the earth, right? But they can’t if they cannot twist their bodies a number of ways. Isn’t that amazing? Everything has a reason!

Even the ant’s heart is interesting. If you can’t view it properly, you’d think it’s the whole string of cord lying on its back—or maybe it is.

Mosquitoes

Although you may argue that bats are the ugliest vampires that ever lived, we still maintain that mosquitoes are the ugliest bloodsuckers in the face of the planet. And they may be the most tenacious.

They owe this to their various sensors, namely heat, chemical, and visual that have been heightened throughout their 30 million-year existence. Let’s not even go to those straws that they have at the end of their heads. Those are the work of hell, sent to torment us living.

Our common pests have bodies, as we do, but theirs may be more impressive. So although you think these critters are the lowliest of life forms, they actually have the right, and the anatomy, to prove otherwise.