Whit (http://bushsyndrome.blogstream.com/) in his 24 February post had a bunch of gross but interesting videos about eating bugs. You especially need to see the one where the guy eats the big fat grub.
It brought to mind an article in the November Scientific American.about what happens when you cut (or bite) the head off a cockroach (blatella germanica. Sounds like what you do after eating them). They are truly remarkable little critters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockroach). “Cockroaches are among the hardiest insects on the planet,.”. They are very resistant to radiation because their cells only divide when they molt.
A roach body can survive without the head for weeks. It breathes through its “torso”, has low blood pressure and does not bleed to death, and is poikilothermiv (coldblooded) so that it uses up little energy. The head can survive for hours, also. The reason scientists are studying it is not because they like torturing cockroaches. Although that is not such a bad thing. It is because one of the things that seems to do in the head and body is the lack of neurological and hormonal interchange from each other.
So, next time you smush one of these critters, think of how tough they really are. And, when the bombs come, superior. And the next time you bite the head off one, you can feel the antennae twitch on the way down. Or, if you just eat the body, the legs still run down your esophagus.
