A Cockroach Can Live Without Its Head

Cockroaches live in a wide range of environments around the world. Pest species adapt readily to a variety of environments, but prefer warm conditions found within buildings.

Many tropical species prefer even warmer environments and do not fare well in the average household.

Cockroaches, like all insects, breathe through a system of tubes called tracheae.

The tracheae of insects are attached to the spiracles, excluding the head. Thus, cockroaches, like all insects, are not dependent on the mouth and windpipe to breathe.

The valves open when the CO2 level in the insect rises to a high level; then the CO2 diffuses out of the tracheae to the outside and fresh O2 diffuses in.

Unlike in vertebrates that depend on blood for transporting O2 and CO2, the tracheal system brings the air directly to cells, with the tracheal tubes branching continually like a tree until their finest divisions, tracheoles, are associated with each cell, allowing gaseous oxygen to dissolve in the cytoplasm lying across the fine cuticle lining of the tracheole. CO2 diffuses out of the cell into the tracheole.

While cockroaches do not have lungs and thus do not actively breathe in the vertebrate lung manner, in some very large species, the body musculature may contract rhythmically to forcibly move air out and in the spiracles; this may be considered a form of breathing.