Insect Life Cycle

Last night I saw a weird looking insect. It was big and white in color. At first I had no idea what it was because that was the first time I saw that kind of insect. I tried to look closer, and I was shocked when I was able to identify that it was a "cockroach"! Yes, a cockroach with pure white skin. I don't know why it became like that when all of the cockroaches I saw were dark in color. I wonder what is the reason behind this change.

Later that night I tried to find out the reason behind the changing of color of cockroaches. As I was researching, I have seen several articles concerning insect life cycle and found them very amusing.

Insect life cycle begin as an egg and then they hatch into a worm-like stage called larvae. Once it grown, it totally changes into a pupa, where it covers itself as it undergoes metamorphosis. After the metamorphosis is complete, the pupa hatches and the insect becomes an adult.

I also found out that there is another insect life cycle, where insect hatches into a nymph, that looks like a small adult, but it does not change into a pupa. All nymph use to shed their skin as they grow up to become adult, and this process is called molting.

Molting process is a part of nymph's life cycle, where the outer covering of its body called "exoskeleton" does not expand as they are growing that is why it has to be shed and replaced with a larger one.

After molting, their inner skin is still soft and white in color. It will took them several hours before their skin will harden and change from white to dark.

This concludes that the cockroach I saw was a nymph and it undergoes molting that is why it has a white color.

The research I made gave me additional knowledge on insect life cycle, especially cockroaches, and it is very interesting. Although most of them are disgusting and scary, knowing how they grow is fun to learn.