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  • [ intro ]

  • You, me, dogs, cats, horses, guinea pigs

  • we're all mammals.

  • All part of one big, happy,

  • milk-producing family.

  • Other animals generally don't share the ability

  • to feed their young with a substance secreted from their own bodies

  • With a few exceptions.

  • Like the Pacific beetle cockroach.

  • Yes, I saidcockroach.”

  • Now, let me start by clarifying that I'm talking about a milk-producing insect,

  • not a milk substitute made from insects,

  • which does exist but is a whole other, unrelated thing.

  • And I should also note that this stuff is not exactly milk

  • at least not by the standards of the dairy industry

  • since the roaches don't have mammary glands.

  • Plus, their babies don't nurse after birth

  • the way mammalian babies do.

  • so you can't just like,

  • squeeze them to collect a tube full of milk.

  • But these insects do produce

  • a special food for their young.

  • And that's how they're able to avoid doing something that most other insects do: laying

  • eggs.

  • Eggs can't exactly run from all the predators

  • that might make a fine meal of them.

  • So young insects that can move about the moment they leave their mother

  • have a bit of a leg up in life

  • or, six of them, to be exact.

  • And the Pacific beetle cockroach

  • is the only known viviparous cockroach,

  • which means that females give birth to live babies.

  • They actually have a uterus of sorts called a brood sac.

  • And it's while a female is incubating her babies in this sac

  • that she produces a milk-like substance for her embryos to ingest.

  • This quotemilkis a complete source of nutrition for the young cockroaches.

  • It's almost 46% protein,

  • including all of the essential amino acids, and about 25% carbs.

  • And it's a whopping 16 to 22% fat, which includes omega-3s and otherhealthy

  • fats.

  • Plus it's got vitamins and minerals.

  • So basically,

  • it's got a lot of everything,

  • which is why it has three times as many calories per gram as buffalo milk,

  • and some researchers say it's among the world's most nutritious substances.

  • And that gives the soon-to-be cockroach babies an evolutionary advantage.

  • During gestation,

  • Pacific beetle cockroach babies undergo a 50-fold increase in dry mass

  • from the time they arrive in the brood sac as fertilized eggs

  • to the moment they leave their mother's body.

  • That's so big that, at birth, the brood

  • typically numbering around 12 nymphs

  • can be one and a half times the weight of their mother.

  • And this whole process from embryo to nymph happens

  • three times faster than in other cockroach species!

  • They keep growing fast, too.

  • Males will reach adulthood after just three to four molts.

  • By contrast,

  • German cockroaches molt six times

  • before reaching adulthood.

  • And since the bugs are very vulnerable during and just after the molting process,

  • fewer molts means they spend less of their lives in this exposed state.

  • In fact, this milk is considered so nutritious that

  • well, you may have already guessed where we're headed.

  • Yes, some have tossed around

  • the idea of mass producing cockroach milk for human consumption.

  • But alas, scientists and health-food moguls

  • have yet to come up with a practical way to harvest this stuff.

  • The roaches are pretty small,

  • and since the fluid is excreted into the brood sac not out into the world,

  • you can't exactly attach them to a milking machine.

  • To get the milk from the mama bugs,

  • researchers inserted filter paper into their brood sacs.

  • That soaks up the goods, which the scientists can then extract from the paper.

  • They can also cut open the young roaches to get at the stuff.

  • see, the liquid turns into crystals in the embryos' digestive tracts.

  • And those crystals can then be cut from their stomachs

  • a process the roaches don't survive.

  • Either way, each roach only gives a tiny amount.

  • Experts estimate it'd take upwards of 1000 cockroaches to get 100 grams of milk.

  • That means you'd have to milk

  • and probably kill

  • countless cockroaches to produce an actual bottle of this stuff,

  • let alone enough bottles to sell to the masses.

  • Also, we don't actually know it's safe to consume in any quantity.

  • So, you won't see it on store shelves any time soon.

  • Researchers may one day be able to synthesize cockroach milk, though.

  • Still, even if that happens,

  • the milk is more likely to have medical applications

  • than it is to end up as a substitute coffee creamer.

  • Which is fine,

  • because we can always drink that milk that's made from insects instead

  • Bottom's up!

  • Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow!

  • If you enjoyed it, I have a feeling you'll really like our podcast,

  • SciShow Tangents.

  • It's a collaboration between Complexly and WNYC studios,

  • and it's hosted by several of the awesome people who work on SciShow.

  • Basically, they try to one-up each other

  • with awesome science knowledge about a given topic.

  • Like, there's an entire episode about how wonderful mucus is.

  • And snot gross at all...

  • Anyhow, we here at SciShow have a lot of fun making it,

  • and we hope you'll have just as much fun listening.

  • So if you want to check it out, you can find it on all the major podcast platforms!

  • [ outro ]

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B2 中上級

ゴキブリのミルクの作り方 (How to Milk a Cockroach)

  • 7 1
    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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