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Interesting Facts
Yes, cockroaches do sleep, if you define it that way. Cockroaches have activity rhythms, i.e. regular times in the day when they are quiet and hide away from the rest of the world as well as wakeful times when they are active, seeking food, water and a mate.
The subject of cockroach activity rhythms is well represented in the scientific literature. In general, most pest species of cockroaches are active (i.e. awake) during the four hours after lights-out. That is why they are often visible when you go to the refrigerator for that midnight snack or come home late from the movies. They cue on that time when you normally shut off all the lights and go to bed. That ensuing four hours of activity is enough for them to get all their important business done without the high probability of running into you.
In a high density cockroach infestation the population may be forced to come out at other times to find food. If you have lowered the population down by using insecticides, whether that is a commercial insecticide or your boric acid application, the remaining few cockroaches will be satisfied with the four hour stretch after lights-out and you will rarely see them.
While we sleep they are active; while they sleep we are active.
How convenient!
The cockroach is an omnivore, that is, it eats everything edible, animal and vegetable. So if we do not move around too much while sleeping they might be inclined to nibble on our earlobes at night. They are rarely aggressive enough to attack us while we are awake.
Only the larger species could take a bite through our skin. Of course the skin of children is much more tender and vulnerable to a roach bite.
Yes.
Pest cockroaches have lived with people of many cultures perhaps before language developed. Here is a link to the common names given to cockroaches in different cultures:
http://open-dictionary.com/Cockroach
Some common names have some suggestive associations. (1) Water Bug. (2) The German cockroach, Polish cockroach, Russian cockroach, Crotton bug all refer to the same species Blattella germanica because one community wanted to name it after something they despised. (3) Some dominant societies have named their local pest cockroach after their oppressed native population. This practice is a sad reflection of how far prejudice has driven our common language.
Our common name 'cockroach' shares sounds with Dutch 'kakkerlak' and Spanish 'cucaracha' and the Spanish song 'La Cucaracha' brings to mind vigorous stamping of the flamenco dancers feet which could refer to the canons of war ... or the stamping feet of a homeowner on the pests. I am told by a reader that the song has multiple potential meanings. The origins of the names are entwined in early cultural history and only careful etymological and sociological study might discover the origins of our word 'cockroach'. I am not aware that such research has been successful in this case.
- A female carrying fertilized eggs could be headless and the eggs she carries could hatch.
- Females also store sperm and can fertilize several subsequent egg packages (oothecae) before they need to mate with a male again. However, a cockroach female needs the head associated gland, corpora allata, to produce the reproductive hormone, JH, to produce a batch of eggs and produce the pheromone that attracts a male to mate. Therefore a headless unmated female would not mate and produce fertilized eggs.
- Whether a mated female with ripe eggs who loses her head could ovulate the now mature eggs and hold onto them until they hatched is questionable. I am not sure if we know the answer to that question. I do know that I did take the ovaries out from of a female German cockroach that was half-way through her ovulation of eggs. The eggs continued to be ovulated in the physiological saline that I was observing them in. I do not know if the other organs that put the oothecal covering over the eggs would have functioned properly. This would be a simple experiment to confirm using the synchronized batches of mated females that I have used previously in my experiments, URL:
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/ms/k1966/ - In Blattella germanica, the German cockroach, the ootheca is held by the female for about 18 days before it hatches. The female provides moisture to the ootheca which the female carries protruding from her bursa. It is precisely the moisture that she provides the ootheca that is in short supply when her head is severed. I doubt that a female which has lost her head and just ovulated her eggs could bring those eggs to term and hatching given the inability to provide water. In a moist atmosphere perhaps it would be possible.
- Periplaneta americana, the American cockroach, lays its eggs, one ootheca every 3 days, carrying the ootheca for about one day before depositing it somewhere safe. If such a female lost her head prior to dropping the ootheca then I am not sure whether the ootheca would be dropped but it is entirely provisioned with enough water to last until it hatches.
So, your question's answer has several stages of possibility. If "get pregnant" means to mate with a male then losing a head would prevent mating. If a female has already gotten to the stage when she has released her sex pheromone to attract the male then a male would be attracted but the female must exhibit some requisite behavior, requiring the head, when a male presents himself to mate with her. Without its head it would not accept the male's mating overtures. But if a female was already mated before her head was lost and "get pregnant" means the ovulation and fertilization of the eggs by the already acquired sperm, then the above discussion does not absolutely preclude her producing and hatching some eggs. Carried eggs might well hatch, unovulated eggs might ovulate and be fertilized but whether they would acquire the requisite oothecal covering to reach hatching is experimentally unknown at the moment.
That number is not the usual number quoted and is (~40 x 5-6) = 200-240. In my substantial experience using B. germanica in my lab, a single female can produce at max about 5-6 egg cases during her lifetime, each about a month apart after her own approximate 35 day juvenile phase.
The timing depends on temperature and they develop most quickly at 30C. Each egg case has approximately 40 eggs so that means a single female will only produce 240 primary offspring. However most people like to scare you with the calculation of total progeny.
That means understanding that only half the 240 primary offspring are females who could each also have 240 offspring half of which are females. Depending on the temperature one needs to calculate the larger number of offspring that a female can produce in a year, which is the usual number that is quoted.