Chapter 57: Chapter 55: Big Mantis, Time to Take Your Medicine (Thanks to Little Angel Lingbo for the Alliance Leader reward!!!)
Considering the issue of experimental contingency, Xu Yun and the others used six cultivation containers for their first experiment, housing a total of over five hundred cockroaches, densely packed, forming a large, black mass.
Looking at the cockroaches covering the inner walls of the cultivation containers, an image Xu Yun once fantasized about suddenly appeared in his mind:
An invisible deep pit, housing tens of thousands of cockroaches, a person losing balance and falling in, then being submerged by the cockroaches....
Yikes...
Xu Yun quickly dispelled this image and refocused his mind on the operation table.
Imidacloprid, as a biological toxin acting on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, works primarily by disrupting the chemical signal transmission of an insect’s motor nervous system, thus physiologically exterminating the target.
As for its transmission principle, there are two methods.
One is the physical mixture in bait gel attracting cockroaches; the chemical sensing range of cockroaches is as much as two hundred meters, so many cockroaches will follow the scent and come to nibble on the poison.
But the number of cockroaches that can be attracted in this way is ultimately limited; the real insecticidal effect of imidacloprid lies in the second method.
Which is...
Cannibalism among cockroaches.
That’s right, cockroaches will gnaw on the corpses of their conspecifics.
Live cockroaches enjoy eating the corpses and excrement of dead cockroaches, so sometimes, when walking on the street, one might see some cockroach corpses with hollowed-out tails or heads, which are the remnants left by cannibalism.
The transmission of imidacloprid leverages this habit, but the number of generations it can affect usually doesn’t exceed three, and dead cockroaches do not carry pheromones, so its effect on attracting conspecifics is limited.
Currently, the best household imidacloprid bait gel in the country is the Baymex produced by Bayer, expensive but remarkably effective; a droplet the size of a rice grain can continuously kill about 60 cockroaches, with generational efficacy spanning between two to two-and-a-half generations.
Besides, there’s also a recipe shared by the famous Master Little Xiaoyu, which consists of boric acid powder + sugar + mashed potatoes.
The ratio of boric acid powder to sugar is 1 to 1, with enough mashed potatoes to form a paste, and it’s ready by placing a bit in all corners.
The main effective ingredient is boric acid powder, which dehydrates the cockroaches to death when ingested; the sugar is for attracting cockroaches, and the potatoes are to form a paste.
The effectiveness of this recipe is also quite good; on Taobao, under boric acid sellers, you can often see related reviews, and occasionally, some banter about water monkeys, etc.
Shifting focus back to the laboratory.
Baymex essentially represents the pinnacle of broad-spectrum cockroach extermination drugs; there are more effective options, but they are difficult to mass-produce.
However, the number of cockroaches that a standard dose of Baymex can kill might seem impressive, yet for large-scale prevention and control, it remains so-so; it might handle a small space of 30 square meters, but for a larger space over 100 square meters, you have to rely on substantial dosages to tackle it.
Thus, Xu Yun’s goal is evidently more ambitious than merely matching its level.
Once everything was prepared, Xu Yun picked up a dropper and squeezed out a grain-sized dose of Fourth-Generation Imidacloprid gel bait onto three small dishes.
The other three dishes were to hold Baymex, Cockroach Killer produced by Neon Xiaolin Pharmaceutical, and Maple Country’s kttu insecticide for contrast.
The gel baits were about the size of a rice grain, semi-transparent, resembling Futalin Cream.
The containers designated for the Fourth-Generation Imidacloprid gel bait were numbers 1-3, while the latter three were numbers 4-6.
Subsequently, Xu Yun and the others used the container’s lifting equipment to place the small dishes at the bottom of the containers, and turned on the cameras to observe the effects.
Xu Yun first observed the biological container noted as number 2, with specifications of a 45X30X20 rectangular shape, containing some drinking water inside.
The cockroaches brought back from He Jiajia were very lively, continuously crawling and bustling around the bottom and walls of the container; you could clearly see the leg hairs and slightly opening wings of the American cockroach, as if, without the barrier of the container, it would fly at you like a dragon rider.
When the dish with the gel bait contacted the bottom of the container, it made a slight vibration, and the cockroaches inside the container suddenly grew restless, but after a dozen seconds, they gradually returned to normal.
Another dozen seconds passed.
The chemical pheromones in the Fourth-Generation Imidacloprid began to disperse, gradually attracting three or four cockroaches nearer, which soon started nibbling on the gel bait.
Meanwhile, in containers 4-6, the cockroaches remained unmoved, with only a few tentatively approaching.
In container 2, after a few cockroaches finished eating the gel bait, they retreated one after another, and a new group came forward to feed.
This continued for a total of three rounds, with container 4, containing Baymex, just seeing cockroaches taking the first bite.
It was evident.
Though both containing pheromone components, the effect of chemical synthesis versus physical mixing was vastly different.
A few more minutes passed, and the cockroaches in container 6 finally gathered around the gel bait.
Seeing this, Xu Yun turned to Zhou Peiyao and asked:
"Xiaozhou, how much time has passed?"
"Since the formal placement, 26 minutes and 36 seconds, container 1 had four rounds of feeding, container 2 five rounds, container 3 four rounds, container 4 two rounds, and containers 5 and 6 each had one round."
Xu Yun nodded, about to encourage Zhou Peiyao with a few words, when Ren Yongcun excitedly exclaimed:
"Senior, look at container 2, this cockroach is reacting!"
Xu Yun hurriedly leaned in, following Ren Yongcun’s gesture to observe.
It was an approximately four-centimeter-long American cockroach, currently clinging to the container wall, its antennae rapidly twirling, wings fully spread, appearing very excited.
After another twenty minutes, this American cockroach could no longer stand on the container wall, its supporting legs lost strength, and it fell onto the container bottom with its back downward.
Although it quickly righted itself, judging by its speed in getting up, its motor neurons were clearly malfunctioning.
As expected.
Not long after, this large cockroach suddenly flipped over, its six legs feebly waving in the air.
More crucially...
The problem in the motor neurons caused the binding proteins within the thoroughly ingrained pheromones to begin interacting with the pheromone receptors on the odorant-sensing neurons, leading to disordered gene expression and extensive pheromone diffusion.
In the next twenty minutes, a large number of male cockroaches gradually gathered around this female American cockroach, appearing exceedingly aroused, with heightened sexual excitement.
However, due to some peculiar conditions of the initial generation, the many male cockroaches did not engage in a group activity.
The female American cockroach, amidst the observation of numerous companions, completely lost all signs of life, and then.....
The male cockroaches brutally gnawed on its head.
.....
Note:
The operations in the next Chapter will be quite bold, presumably.....