Any nerds with a tendency to lore/info dump have any reason why the scientific name of roach is Long Dick Johnson? Was those old scientists trolling us or?
Hello. I am not an expert. But I went to read the species description from the 1800something paper. There is nothing to suggest it has a penis or some kind of reproductive organ of remarkable length. Instead, it does seem to have very long wings, and since cockroach forewings have a pennate structure, it stands to reason to think that the perpendicular venations in the wing are long, because of a combination of angle and length available. Therefore longipennis.
Now this is just guessing, so of there is someone who knows better I’d love to hear about it.
Funny name aside, this is literally one of the reasons, why I (and most people on the NW part of South America) am freaking traumatized by cockroaches. Having a single one of this fly at your face as soon as you turn on the lights of a dark (and maybe even moist) room, will give you a heart attack
When I moved to Florida (I do not recommend), the locals called the bigger ones “palmetto bugs.” No dude, that’s a big-ass roach. A cute name does not change that fact.
Imma upvote you for the quote, but YSK it’s “risible” which is an additional layer of humour if you’re familiar with Latin (which was what the Romans spoke), because “risible” is an archaic English word from around the 1600s meaning “to provoke laughter”, which is itself based on the Latin word “ris”, which means “laugh”. “Ridere” means “to laugh” and “ridiculus” means “laughable”.
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