Here's an
unusual urban legend that I haven't heard before. It involves a group of students at Texas A&M University who are sharing a house together. It's in the genre of 'roommate horror stories'. According to the story, one of the students is an entomology major and keeps a collection of giant Africanized cockroaches in a terrarium. But during a party the terrarium breaks and the roaches escape, only to start breeding like crazy in the house. To solve this roach problem the students set loose some baby armadillos (since armadillos eat roaches). But soon the armadillos start breeding, without making much of a dent in the roach population, until eventually the house is full of a lot of roaches and a lot of armadillos. At this point the roommates decide to get some shotguns and shoot all the roaches and armadillos, but only succeed in busting up the house. And to make a long story short, the armadillos eventually start tunneling beneath the house, creating a sink hole that causes the entire building to collapse and fall into the ground. So in other words, the animals win in the end. The students are left with a bill for $25,000 in damages, courtesy of the landlord.
Comments
LISA
But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER
No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
LISA
But aren't the snakes even worse?
SKINNER
Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA
But then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER
No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Though I'll give them points for originality.
By the way, what eats armadillos? (Other than highway traffic)
Nice warning about how NOT to go about your own pest control, doesn't seem likely that it's real.
Also, I have never heard of "giant Africanized roaches". Madagascarian hissing cockroaches, maybe, but not THAT. And you could just step on them.
One mature roach will produce (theoretically) 6 trillion roaches, if the environment is all hunky-dory, the first year. The first two armadillos (have to have two to breed, right?) had better be friggin hungry, they have got 6 trillion roaches to eat before they get help. If all the babies are male, and fertilized by the father (I don't know if armadillos mate for life etc, and don't care, I'm just playin), then at the start of the second year, there should be 5 pregnant dillos. At the end of the first year, there should be 22 armadillos. They'd better be hungry, because by then the roaches will be so totally out of control, the numbers are too big for my calculator (maybe I should go get my graphing calc, it's got a huge readout). Of course, this doesn't exclude the population control, but seriously, how many roaches could two armadillos put an end to in the first year?
Totally unworkable, and by the time you end up with 22 armadillos, you'll be so busy fending off people who swerve into your yard to try and hit them and also fending off PETA (hey, since when did anybody have to do something wrong to offend THEM?)that you wouldn't even have time to clean up the crap of 22 armadillos. Just imagine the carpet cleaning bill!
And I hear they hog the remote.
I DO think it would be funny to have both groups standing on the sidewalk in front of the house at the same time, though.
Wouldn't THAT confuse the neighbors. Even more than the extra loud crawling sound they keep "thinking" they hear at night.
"Hey Margaret, do you hear that?"
"For Christ's sake, Bob, give it up. I keep telling you I can't hear...." (Voice trails off as roaches carry her out to use a a sacrifice to try and appease the "Ringy Gods".
1. They built an armadillo-proof house? They are extremely adept at digging, even through hard-pan. Unless the house was built out of cinder blocks, they could dig out.
2. What did the 6 zillion roaches eat during this time? No inhabitable house could support feeding this quantity.
3. Armadillos ALWAYS have 4 identical quadruplets. A daddy 'dillo and a mommy 'dillo could make 4 little girl 'dillos. So now a biologist would have to entertain the (disgusting) idea of an incestuous male with a very small gene line...since those four little girl 'dillos are identical twins, mind you. I'm thinking idiot 'dillos would rule the house over time. (No aggie jokes on that thought, please.)