Rhonda Bracey: At Random

… and it’s already on its way to the Australian Museum!

I popped out at lunchtime today and when I came home I saw a native cockroach on its back right near the front door. I thought it was dead, but it still had a little movement in its legs. So I hightailed it inside, found a small box, gathered up some leaf litter, put the cockroach in the box (I didn’t even draw breath to find out if it was a male or female or to take a photo of it), added some air holes and sealed the box.

Then it was back to the Post Office to send it Express Post to the researcher at the Australian Museum. He should get it by Wednesday or Thursday.

I doubt if it will still be alive by then — it looked pretty well done in when I found it (we’ve had the outside of the house sprayed for Portuguese millipedes and I suspect that most invertebrates coming into contact with the residual poison aren’t coping too well).

Still, the researcher will get a specimen and hopefully will be able to tell me whether it is a new species or a geographic variation of any existing one. Who’d have thought I could get excited by a cockroach!?!

Update: I’ve since found a couple more and sent them off to the Museum. The latest (November 2009) was a healthy female, completely intact. The researcher hopes she has eggs, and has taken her home to watch over her — just in case. When she dies, she will go into the entomology section.