From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utcsri!rpi!gatech!ukma!memstvx1!langston Tue Jul 28 09:41:26 EDT 1992
Article 6455 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!utcsri!rpi!gatech!ukma!memstvx1!langston
>From: langston@memstvx1.memst.edu (Mark C. Langston)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Cockroaches
Message-ID: <1992Jul15.052619.2782@memstvx1.memst.edu>
Date: 15 Jul 92 05:26:18 -0600
References: <BILL.92Jul13114604@cortex.nsma.arizona.edu><1992Jul14.031930.3423@mp.cs.niu.e <BILL.92Jul14220035@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>
Distribution: world
Organization: Memphis State University
Lines: 33

In article <BILL.92Jul14220035@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>, bill@nsma.arizona.edu (Bill Skaggs) writes:
> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
> 
>      I believe it is true that cockroaches are not very adaptable, and are
>    not very successful in survival.  Individual cockroaches, that is.  As a
>    species, they compensate for limited individual survivability by having
>    a high reproductive rate.
> 
> Well, this is kind of tangential, but I feel obliged to speak up for
> the poor denigrated cockroach.  They are extremely adaptable; it is
> their adaptability that allows them to thrive in such a wide variety
> of unnatural environments -- for example, in houses -- where insects
> with more fixed behavioral repetoires cannot long exist.  They're
> pretty successful at survival, too; you have to be damned quick to
> kill one, or use chemical warfare.  They are also capable of
> surprising feats of learning, particularly spatial learning.  (They
> can actually learn to find places by using distant landmarks, as Nick
> Strausfeld, on this campus, has shown with his "roach on a hot tin
> roof" experiment.)  It's hard to accept that such a nasty, ugly, dirty
> creature could be the most intelligent of insects, but, with the
> possible exception of the honeybee, it might well be.
> 
> 	-- Bill

And let's not forget their _very_ adaptive immune system.


-- 
+--------8<------Cut Here------8<------Cut Here------8<------Cut Here---------+
  Mark C. Langston   |  "Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny."                 
  Psychology Dept.   |  "Always listen to experts.  They'll tell you what can't
  Memphis State U.   |     be done, and why.  Then do it."                      
      "Pftph!"       |           -From the notebooks of Lazarus Long         


