Just the thought of cockroaches can make most of the people uncomfortable and squirmish. The sight of one can rent the air with shrill screams. These creepy crawly beasts have been loathed, despised, swatted at!, trampled upon, and hated from time immemorial. These home pests have an uncanny ability to tip-toe on the smoothest and inclined of surfaces and survive extremes of temperatures.

Here are some interesting facts that you did not know about them. However, please refrain from discussing these at your dinner table, or a social affair in fear of being outcast by the host or guests.

1. Crushed roaches when applied to wounds can help ease the sting.
2. Cockroaches can live a month or more without food, but hardly make it past a week without water.
3. Some roaches, better known as Blattaria can fly! Not exactly of any significant height, but the very thought scares the living hell out of a person.
4. Fried cockroaches are common snacks in Cambodia. Talk about appetizers being crunchy!
5. These pesky pests have the ability to survive the harshest of deserts, the Thar to even the Arctic.
6. A cockroach can live a week without its head. However, it dies due to lack of water after that. Now that’s a headless hunter, ladies and gentlemen!
7. They have white blood.
8. It uses its air passages to make sounds, unlike other insects which rub their body parts together to do so.
9. Cockroach allergies were first reported 50 years ago. It is real and extremely dangerous. This is called Cockroach induced asthma.
10. A cockroach has just shed its skin is white and has black eyes. It takes another 8 hours to reproduce the layer.
11. Cockroaches are deemed the only creatures to survive a nuclear bomb. So much for a survival rate.
12. A wild cockroach might die in the stomach of a poor bird or a small animal that rely on it for food. But most cockroaches in our home die just because they cannot right themselves after falling and landing on their backs. Without the ability to control its muscles, the roach just dies upside down.
13. Cockroaches continue to release methane for up to 18 hours, even after their death. This pits them as top contributors to Global Warming.
14. Cockroaches run three miles an hour. That makes them quite fast. So much for being a cheetah!
15. Cockroaches eat just about anything from glue, bookbinding, leather, to grease or even hair.
16. These beasts have walked the surface of Earth for millions of years now.
17. Cockroaches like to be touched!
18. American roaches have shown a marked attraction to alcoholic beverages, especially beer. They most likely prefer alcohol mixed with hops and sugar! On the house, please.
19. A roach can hold its breath for 40 minutes, and can survive with its head submerged in water for half an hour.
20. Newborn German cockroaches become adults in as little as 36 days. So much for an upbringing!
21. Here were a few interesting ones. So you might go ahead and advertise your knowledge on these not-so-fabulous pests the next time you are not sure of a conversation starter.