Black cockroach insect. Black cockroach lifestyle and habitat

Cockroaches are perhaps the most common synanthropic insect pests that exist. Red Prussians often appear in apartments. Large black cockroaches are much less common. Both of them live not only in the kitchen, but also in the bathroom, for which they are popularly called "sewer" or "basement".

Cockroaches spoil things and products, carry serious infectious diseases, so you need to start fighting them immediately. The main feature of pests is that they live in rooms with high humidity, and the lack of water is destructive for them. Where do pests come from in a home and how to get them out?

Black cockroach: who is it and where did it come from in your house?

Below are just a few of the ways in which the Crimean cockroach enters homes - and the steps you can take to prevent their invasion and further mass congestion.

Corrugated cardboard and newspaper

Cockroaches are attracted to papers for a very specific reason. They communicate with each other through chemical pheromones that they release; paper absorbs these pheromones. Basically, paper helps cockroaches find each other and organize.

What to do:

Replace all cardboard boxes with plastic containers, and do not take or store cardboard items in your home. Do not store stacks of newspapers in or around your home - recycle!

Drains and basements

Basement cockroaches are cunning enough to get in and out through drains and pipes. This is a serious problem in multi-apartment buildings where downpipes are used as mains between apartments.

What to do:

Place plugs and metal baskets over all sinks and showers in your home. If your home has a shower or laundry sink that is not used regularly, close it completely when not in use. First of all, keep all drains clean!

Cracks in the foundation and outer walls

Although cockroaches can grow to be quite large, some species are able to move through crevices and holes only one and a half millimeters wide! This means that any holes in a building's foundation or exterior walls are an open invitation for cockroaches. Any other gaps around pipes, windows, vents will also allow cockroaches to enter.

What to do:

The best measure to keep roaches from getting through cracks is to seal any crevices you may find with a sealant.

Under the doors

It is one of the most common cockroach entry gates, as some species are attracted to light from indoor buildings and the space is often large enough for them to slip through.

What to do:

Change the light bulbs near doorways from white to yellow to curb the attraction. On the doors themselves, you can add a seal between the door and the threshold.

Clothes and luggage

Cockroaches hide on paper bags, briefcases, wallets, backpacks and other personal belongings, thus covering long distances and even interstate borders. For example, a banana cockroach often arrives with fruit in Russia.

What to do:

It is almost impossible to check everything that enters the house for cockroaches or their eggs, but minimizing the use of paper bags can help.

Dry pet food

Cockroaches are not so picky about what they eat. Your bag of dry puppy food or cat food may be what attracts cockroach infestations.

What to do:

Do not store pet food in garages or sheds before bringing it into your home. Once inside, be careful to store it in a plastic sealed container, not in an open package.

Mechanical and thermal methods

Mechanical impact on cockroaches is not very effective. It involves the cold-blooded killing of every insect found with one of the items at hand. So you can fight if the number of arthropods is not large.

For a long time, the method of freezing the whole house has been practiced to remove cockroaches. To do this, choose one of the frosty winter days. In the morning, they turn off the heating in the house and open wide all the windows and doors. Sewer black cockroaches will die in the cold.

How to detect a black cockroach infestation

If you see black cockroaches flying over your kitchen counter or running over your baseboard in the morning, it's already too late. Since, pests are usually visible only when the infestation is already very strong. So a visible cockroach usually gets 200 invisible ones.

Nevertheless, to understand that you have huge Crimean cockroaches and the infection is in full swing, you can predict the following signs:

A characteristic stench: animals secrete pheromones, which we perceive as a slightly sweet odor. The stronger the infection, the stronger the smell.
Cockroach excrement: Cockroach excrement is about 1 mm long and can easily be mistaken for coffee powder. On flat surfaces or walls, they are often viewed as elongated paths.
Remains of molting: the cockroach changes its skin up to 8 times during its development. Moulting remains are often found near nests.
Remains of capsules: As stated above, female black cockroaches carry a cocoon on themselves, which contains up to 50 eggs. Its remains can be found near the nests.
Damage to food: cockroaches are omnivorous and gnaw on all packaging materials (plastic, cardboard, etc.)

Lifestyle

If the room is warm, dark and dry, then the appearance of black cockroaches becomes a matter of time. They perfectly feel the approach of a person or an animal by the vibrations caught by the antennae, so they quickly hide. Only young insects that prefer to stay in groups can be taken by surprise. They are so hungry that they are forced to crawl out in the daytime in search of food, even to garbage cans. At night, by turning on the lights in the kitchen sharply, it is easy to find adults on the table or in the sink. They rarely manage to get out of the latter because of the special structure of the legs.

In small cities and metropolitan areas, there are mainly basement black cockroaches. But from this humid, warm room, they sometimes penetrate the entrances and apartments located on the first two floors. After the eggs are laid under the skirting boards, the population increases significantly. It is reduced in such cases:

Cold. Even small frosts can cause the death of first cubs, and then sexually mature individuals of cockroaches.
Insecticides. The Sanitary and Epidemiological Station regularly raids basements, treating them with insecticides. After visiting them, some specimens appear in apartments, however, they soon die.
Natural opponents. Oddly enough, these are not animals and larger relatives, but representatives of the same order - red cockroaches. Their survival rate is higher: they even eat wallpaper glue, easily withstand low temperatures, and multiply faster.

Despite their nocturnal lifestyle, black cockroaches leave traces of their presence indoors. This is not only excrement, but also an unpleasant, musty smell. It is easy to spot spoiled food, scattered cereals.

Insects do not disdain cannibalism. Sexually mature individuals happily feast on eggs and nymphs - the larval stage of development with incomplete transformation.

What does this insect look like?

Most cockroaches are reddish brown or black, except when they molt. Cockroaches that have recently molted or have lost their exoskeleton to grow tend to be temporarily whitish. They are oval in shape and often appear flattened.

It is doubtful that you have never seen a cockroach. If such happiness happened to you, study it in the photo.

Black cockroaches are larger than red cockroaches and their Crimean progenitors.

Cockroach damage

Cockroaches are carriers of pathogenic bacteria. They can cause up to 40 different diseases: diphtheria, worms, typhoid fever. Contribute to the manifestation of signs of tuberculosis, hepatitis, asthma. The bacteria are carried by insects on their feet and remain on food and utensils. The secret to excreting black cockroaches has a very unpleasant odor. A black cockroach can bite a person. His bite is painful. At the site of the bite, skin erosion, infection, blisters appear. Cockroaches disable household appliances, gnaw through rubber and plastic parts, spoil food.

What do black cockroaches eat?

Instead of asking “what do cockroaches eat,” it would be easier to answer the question of what they don’t eat. Why? Because these scavengers are among the most demanding eaters in the insect kingdom.

Cockroaches have three elements that work together. This is how they differ from other household pests. First, cockroaches are omnivorous. This means that they eat both plants and animals, they don't care. Second, cockroaches are opportunistic eaters. They will eat whatever you have in your home, as long as it meets the third point: the food must be organic (that is, not metal, plastic, etc.).

Cockroaches are ancient and highly successful insects. They practice many habits in order to survive, including:

they eat their own feces!
they eat their own vomit!
they eat their own kind

Cockroaches will consume most of the foods you like. After all, humans are omnivorous too, so it's no surprise that we have the same tastes. This is why you will find cockroaches in kitchens, food storage areas, and food preparation areas in infested homes.

Now, if your kitchen were a restaurant, cockroaches would definitely order certain types of food before others. Sweets, starches and animal proteins are the favorite food of cockroaches. They also like fatty foods, cheese, or anything that is moldy or leavened. Take special care to store sweet foods in airtight containers, clean cutting boards after cooking meat, and wipe down the table after slicing bread and any other remaining crumbs. Cleanliness is an important part of cockroach prevention.

If your “restaurant” does not have “favorite” cockroach dishes, alas, they will not go elsewhere. They will study to figure out what else is on the menu, sampling everything in their path. Decaying substances help develop their appetite, so trash and waste - even human waste - will serve as fine food for the black cockroach. Plants, soap and cosmetics are suitable for food.

Origin

This species of large insects originally originated in the southern regions of Eurasia: the Crimea, the Caspian lowland, and the Black Sea region. The cockroach is rather slow and cannot fly.Such qualities held back its spread across the continent. But sufficiently developed cultural ties and wars that swept through these places contributed to the conquest of the entire continent by the cockroach.

Interesting!
The pest penetrated into Kazakhstan, thanks to the Great Silk Road and the Tatar-Mongol invasion. In Europe, he ended up after the Greek and Roman conquests of the habitats of these insects. I came to North America with comfort: on ships.

What do cockroaches eat if there is no food anywhere?

Cockroaches consider many foods to be food sources. For example, in search of starch, cockroaches will eat more than potatoes, bread or pasta. The food starches group for them includes book bindings, paper, wallpaper and glue on the back.

As a protein, cockroaches consider dead insects, animal skin (for example, the soft lining of the skin), and even human hair and nails as viable food sources. They will also eat their young if food becomes scarce. In fact, cockroaches are known to bite humans, although this is extremely rare and only occurs when infestation reaches catastrophic levels.

Cockroaches prefer corns, eyelashes, dead skin scales and nails over living tissue. This is because the cockroach's jaws are rather weak. Their sideways moving lower jaws are great for carrying and chewing on bits of their usual diet, but those jaws will also have a hard time piercing your skin. They find it easier to feed on the keratin and protein found in your nails and hair.

It is rare that a scavenger like a cockroach runs out of food. Outside, cockroaches can eat decaying plants and dead wood. In sewer systems, they make the most of waste, sewage and water, especially since many cockroach species thrive in humid, dark places. So, what do cockroaches eat if there is nothing around? Nothing really. Many cockroach species can survive for up to a month without food if they have water. Even if you set up cockroach traps and bait, even if you clean your house, it may not be enough to stop the cockroaches waiting outside or inside your walls. You cannot starve them. Only a pest control professional who can guarantee their safety and protect your home relentlessly will give you the absolute advantage.

Insect appearance

Large black cockroaches in the apartment will never go unnoticed. They are quite large (up to 3 cm), and move a little slower than their red counterparts. Insects look like beetles, powerful and wide, with a strong shiny shell. The color of the strong chitinous shell varies from coal-anthracite to dark brown. The body is somewhat flattened, which allows black cockroaches to easily penetrate narrow cracks, for example, under the baseboards.

Effective Ways to Get Rid of Black Cockroaches Forever

The chitinous shell reliably protects the internal organs and supports the muscles attached to it, so insects do not need an internal skeleton. They inherited a segmental structure from their ancestors. However, in the course of evolution, the division of the body into repeating metameres along the longitudinal axis was lost. Now the body of a black cockroach is divided into three tagmas:

Head. In a male cockroach, the forehead smoothly turns into a rounded crown. On the convex part there are yellowish-amber eyes, and they are set closer to each other than in the female. The prominent part of the head of both sexes is the antennae. They help the insect to navigate in space, to smell the food, which may be several tens of meters away from the cockroach. A distinctive feature of the female's head is that the distance between the eyes is much greater than between the antennae.
Chest. This part of the insect's body resembles an oval drop with a wider back part.The shell here is convex, domed, and more glossy. In the male, the dorsal edges pass into the sides somewhat smoothed, and in the females - sharply, pronounced.
Abdomen. In the male, above the genital appendage, the abdomen is equipped with a genital transverse plate, the back of which resembles an arc. And the anal plate is similar to a short rectangular protruding blade. In the female, it is roof-shaped, triangular in shape with egg-laying on the convex part. Entomologists easily distinguish it from the male by its reddish lower half rings.

Neither a domestic nor a sewer black cockroach can fly, even over short distances. Nevertheless, they have wings, but only in males. These are thin miniature brown plates, equal in length to the elytra (12–15 mm). When folded, the wings cover the delicate abdomen by almost two-thirds, protecting it from damage. Females have no wings, but sometimes elytra can be taken for them - thin, elongated, but short (about 5 mm).

Interesting! Black cockroaches have a very complex oral apparatus, consisting of the upper and lower jaws and lips, tongue, mandibular and jaw tentacles. But they cannot bite a person, although they try. There is only a feeling of light scratching, absolutely painless.

How do black cockroaches breed?

Cockroaches breed by laying eggs. One cocoon contains from 15 to 50 pieces. One female can lay at least 10 egg cocoons in her life. It takes 4 months for a cockroach to develop from egg to adult. Cockroaches can live and reproduce for up to 30 weeks. During this time, more than 300 females can produce offspring. The woman carries eggs in a bag on her back. This is an ooteca capsule. It is often mistaken for an elongated tail.

In case of danger, the dying female can throw him back, catapult, and her capsule with eggs will remain alive. Such situations can arise when a female cockroach runs away and drops her egg back. In case of exposure to toxic substances, the eggs remain alive, and the young generation of roach develops from them.

How did these insects get into your home?

How do cockroaches get into the house? If black cockroaches are crawling behind your kitchen cabinets, this is not necessarily a sign of uncleanness. Usually, cockroaches arrive at guests in food packaging or in tourist luggage. They find the ideal living environment for you: central heating ensures a comfortable temperature of 25 to 30 ° C, and casually packed food makes the kitchen a paradise for black gourmets.

As soon as cockroaches show up in your home, an instant response on your part is important: unhygienic insects multiply rapidly and penetrate into neighboring rooms and apartments through air duct systems and cable channels.

Where do black cockroaches come from?

May appear black beetle even in the apartmentwhere perfect cleanliness is maintained. Close enough nest and microscopic loophole to start black cockroaches in the house.

How an insect gets into an apartment

the most common option, where do black cockroaches come from in the apartment - careless neighbors who have already started a family of "tenants";
the most accessible way to enter a dwelling is sewer passages;
basements, ventilation shafts, garbage collectors - a favorable environment for the breeding of pests;
big black cockroach in the apartment may appear as a bag skidding from work, a store or in a suitcase after a rest;
when purchasing used furniture or household appliances, there is a risk of bringing an unwanted tenant into the house.

Homemade black cockroach hides in secluded places. Usually these are cracks in the walls, cracks in the sewer pipes. Clutches of eggs can be found under baseboards, behind wallpaper, in sofas, closets, near trash cans, etc.Pests are also found in the wild, but always near human dwellings. therefore black cockroach Wikipedia classified as a synanthropic insect.

Why are black cockroaches dangerous?

The unequivocal answer: YES! Cockroaches are extremely dangerous to humans! Through feces, saliva and shedding, they contaminate all surfaces and especially food. Cockroach-borne or cockroach-borne diseases include:

salmonellosis: all diseases caused by salmonella, some of which are highly contagious (such as typhus).
tuberculosis: infectious disease with high mortality
various fungal infections
worm infections
severe gastrointestinal diseases
Hepatitis A: acute inflammation of the liver
Dysentery: acute inflammation of the small and large intestine; severe diarrhea, which can lead to complete circulatory failure.
severe allergies that can cause asthma and eczema

Close Encounters of the Third Degree

Background

The myth of government agents who know the whole truth about the alien presence on Earth, but prefer to hide it, was extremely popular in the United States in the second half of the 20th century. Conspiracy theorists, fueled by the Roswell Incident, Project Blue Book, the yellow press and other credible sources, reacted with interest to any reports of top secret agents intervening in the affairs of ordinary citizens. People in black suits and glasses, driving around in black cars, took the place of the old Testament folklore demons in the mass consciousness, whose appearance did not promise anything good: according to a widespread urban legend, if a person happens to encounter something inexplicable, agents in black will come to him, hang noodles on their ears, accusing them of baseless alarmism, or even erase their memory in order to keep their dark secrets intact. Some sensationalists are not satisfied with the well-worn thesis about a government that "cannot help but lie" and tend to believe that the agents are most likely aliens themselves, because then their desire to maintain secrecy becomes even more motivated ...

The theme was waiting for its splash into pop culture, and this happened in 1990, when Aircel Comics published a comic strip by Lowell Cunningham "Men in Black". During the year, three issues managed to see the light, after which the publisher was bought by competitors from Malibu Comics and continued to release the series under their own name.

“I heard about“ men in black ”from my friend, the author later recalled. “He saw a big black car on the street and said:“ These people in black drive. Those that appear at the landing sites of UFOs and all are classified. " I thought it would make a great project. "

In 1992, the comic caught the eye of the spouses-film producers Walter F. Parks and Laurie MacDonald, who immediately acquired the rights to film it: the couple believed that with the right approach, the plot of Cannigham could be developed into a lucrative franchise. But this required a very special director, capable of filling even a dark plot with humor, and the director of the "Adams Family" dilogy, Barry Sonnenfeld, seemed a very suitable candidate. Prior to his directing debut, Barry worked as a cinematographer for the Coen brothers' first films, and also worked behind the camera in the production of such acclaimed films as Throw Mom Off the Train, Big and Misery. But by the time Parks and MacDonald were ripe for the offer, Sonnenfeld had signed on to direct the film Get Shorty, and had to refuse the offer. Quentin Tarantino and John Landis also showed no interest in the project (the latter, who called the film "Blues Brothers" with aliens, "later regretted it).The backup contender was Les Mayfield, who was rumored to have baked a remake of The Miracle on 34th Street as expected by Walter and Laurie, but both were disappointed when the film came out. Deciding that it would be too risky to trust Mayfield with a sci-fi comedy worth $ 90 million, the producers again turned to Sonnenfeld, and he agreed to make "Men in Black" his next directorial project, promising that time would not be wasted and that in parallel with " Get Shorty “He'll be pre-producing their tape.

Parks and MacDonald, who launched production at Amblin Entertainment, planned to take only the general concept from the original comic, since the dark, dryish tone of Lowell Cunningham's story did not set up for fun and could scare off the general public, while the partners aimed at a family audience. In Cunningham's account, agents of a secret supranational organization calling themselves "Men in Black" ("LvC") were interested not only in aliens, but also in demons, werewolves and all kinds of paranormal phenomena, and were ready to maintain secrecy at any cost, up to physical destruction unwanted witnesses. The central character of the comic was Agent X, who fell into disgrace, in order to stay alive, forced to flee from his own colleagues. Writer Ed Solomon has done a great job of sculpting all of this into a story about a rookie - former New York cop and now Agent Jay, who discovered that planet Earth is a refuge for many alien life forms disguised as humans, and what is now his task make sure that they do not buzz, and at the same time powder the brains of the population, prying their noses into their own affairs. The scriptwriter made Jay's partner an experienced agent Kay, and the main villain was a giant alien cockroach that unauthorizedly landed on Earth, whose activities could lead to the destruction of the planet. The agents got at their disposal a neutralizer wand to instantly erase someone else's memory, a variety of superweapons and a car that James Bond himself would envy.

Casting

Few people know, but the main characters of "Men in Black" could not be Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, but David Schwimmer and Clint Eastwood. But both refused to participate in the project at an early stage. Didn't want to play "rookie" and Chris O'Donnell, who decided that it was too similar to his roles in "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin". And only then Sonnenfeld listened to the opinion of his wife, who was a fan of playing Smith in the series "The Prince of Beverly Hills". Recalling that he had seen the black actor in Six Frontiers of Distance, the director agreed that he was good and contacted Will. The actor was dissatisfied with the script sent to him and wanted to abandon the role of agent Jay, but another female intervention helped to resolve this issue: Will's wife Jade found the story interesting and persuaded him to accept the offer.

Unlike Smith, Tommy Lee Jones rested his horn and agreed to play Agent Kay only on condition that the script would be improved: in his opinion, Solomon's text had very little in common with the original comic. Steven Spielberg, who joined the project as an executive producer, gave the script for the "treatment" to the highly experienced Akiva Goldsman, but the adventures of the script did not end there: subsequently the plot was redrawn more than once right in the midst of filming. Linda Fiorentino, who played the mortuary worker Laurel Weaver, who regularly deals with aliens (and just as regularly earns her memory erasure), got the role, beating it on a bet against Sonnenfeld in poker. The evil alien beetle Edgar was offered to play John Turturro, but he was too busy on other projects, so Vincent D'Onofrio eventually got the role.Bruce Campbell was also supposed to be a little involved, but he was never able to escape from the filming of the television movie "Tornado".

Preproduction

Before production went into active phase, there was a full year of preproduction, during which Sonnefeld was finishing "Get Shorty". One of the producers, Steve Molen, invited Rick Baker to the project - a master of special effects and special makeup, winner of several Oscars, who had a hand in such iconic projects as Star Wars, American Werewolf in London, Gremlins-2 "," Crazy Professor "," Scarecrows ", etc. Baker was handed the script and tasked with designing the aliens, giving him ample time and space for fantasy.

“We made more drawings for this one film than I did in my entire career,” Baker later recalled. - Everything I drew was sent to Steven Spielberg, everything had to be endorsed, every wrinkle. And often I got the answer: “Stephen liked the head of this creature here, and Barry liked the body of another. Can't you connect them? "

But with all the desire, even with a year of head start, Baker could not provide the entire film with special effects. This is how Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) appeared on the horizon - George Lucas' company with Eric Brevig in charge of creating visual effects for films, on account of which, among other hits, were "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "Back to the Future", "Indiana Jones ”and, of course,“ Star Wars ”. Although Baker worked the old-fashioned way - with the help of animatronic dolls, his skills were very useful to ILM: in many cases, Brevig's wards took Baker's ready-made designs and created computer versions based on them.

Filming

Filming began in March 1996 and lasted until the end of July. Smith was still finishing work on The Prince of Beverly Hills at this time, so the first couple of weeks were filming episodes without his participation. The opening scene with agents and illegal Mexican immigrants was completely done in the pavilion in a couple of days: the director was afraid that night shooting in a real desert would slow down the process for weeks. In addition, in a real desert it would not have been possible to arrange cacti so beautifully. In the end, the slightly unrealistic lighting only benefited the picture, giving an interesting ambiance to what was happening. Most of this scene was written by Tommy Lee Jones himself, who really wanted to show off his knowledge of Spanish.

The graphics for the desert episode were done at ILM under the direction of Eric Brevig. A turtle-fish-toad-like alien named Mikey was portrayed in different frames either by Baker's assistant John Alexander, hidden in the depths of a rubber suit, or by his computer counterpart (a rubber Mikey would not have been able to run so naturally and bared his teeth). In the end, Mikey was shot - with a drawn shot, but with a very tangible result: instead of him, a 50-gallon barrel of blue goo was blown up in front of the lens.

Steven Spielberg's favorite scene - childbirth in a car - was also filmed with the joint efforts of Brevig and Baker. While Tommy Lee Jones was talking to actor Patrick Brin (Sonnenfeld took him to all his films, because he, he says, knows how to look natural), Will Smith in the background was trying to give birth to an alien squid. The first shot was shot on location, the second - in the pavilion against the background of the chroma key, later both shots were glued together, and the dangling tentacles were added to them. It was not necessary to draw a newborn squid: Baker brought an animatronic doll to the set, which was able not only to move its limbs, but even very naturalistically chewed Will Smith.

Initially, the action of the script jumped in different locations from California and Kansas to Nevada and Washington, but the director decided that it would be more appropriate to focus the plot in his native New York, since it is easier for an alien to get lost in this colorful city: “I wanted to move the action there, because many New Yorkers themselves resemble aliens. I decided that if aliens live on Earth, then they will be very comfortable in this city, and none of the New Yorkers will even look at them once again. " Barry also liked the appearance of the city itself, the architectural elements of which could well have been disguised spaceships.

According to the scenario, the headquarters of the "Men in Black" looked like a chain of featureless buildings with a complex layout. Production designer Bo Welsh dismissed this idea and persuaded the director to give the design of the building the spirit of the 60s (when, in fact, the organization "LvCh" appeared). Designed in a Sony studio pavilion, he filled the interiors of the building with rounded elements reminiscent of flying saucers, and made the main hall look like the TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport to emphasize that the organization deals with guests from space. Exterior plans for the headquarters were donated by a giant building near New York's Battery Park, which in real life houses the ventilation system of the Holland Tunnel.

In one of the first scenes where Will Smith is chasing a cephalopoid, he jumps off the very bridge on which he will be chased by infected inhumans a decade later in the tape "I Am Legend" (and this is not the only interesting coincidence: for example, Smith makes a joke in the frame about Captain America, not yet knowing that Tommy Lee Jones will play a role in the film of the same name). The fall of the actor inside a passing bus had to be accompanied by some kind of joke, and Smith came up with it at dinner: "Today black men just rain from the sky!" - Agent Kay declared to passengers. Since the New York Philharmonic, where they wanted to film the chase, demanded a million dollars in rent, Sonnenfeld found another location: the Guggenheim Museum; he just looked very alien.

It was hard for everyone on the set. So, John Alexander almost drowned in his own sweat inside Mikey's rubber suit, and Vincent D'Onofrio, in the guise of Farmer Edgar, had to sip water and sugar for fifteen takes, so by the end of the day he felt sick. By the way, Vincent approached the role of a beetle that pulled the skin of a farmer very seriously: before filming, he watched a lot of documentaries about insects, adopting a cockroach's demeanor, and eventually developed a gait on stiff legs, which became the hallmark of his character. Smith also prepared himself: before filming, he specially attended the convention of contactees with aliens to gain impressions. On the set, Tommy Lee Jones was terribly worried about the fact that his tie was constantly straying to the side, and this moment was reflected in the plot when Smith's character declares: “You know what the difference is between us? The suit suits me. "

Makeup was applied to Vincent for 6 hours daily. To make his own face look like a poorly fitting mask, the actor's skin on his cheeks was pulled together and fixed in this position. “Poor Vincent, we drove him through hell,” Baker recalled. "He walked around all day, unable to even blink."

The famous scene in which D'Onofrio stretches the loose skin over his skull was done by combining Rick Baker's mask with ILM's efforts. But for Tony Shalowb, who played the pawnshop owner Jack Gibbs, Rick Baker painted the face not for the sake of an alien, but just so that it did not arouse sympathy: the actor was made protruding teeth, squint and huge ears. A complex shot, in which a new one was rapidly growing in place of the shot off head of a buyer of stolen goods, was drawn for 7 months. In addition, Sonnenfeld made sure that Shaloub's voice sounded unnatural. “In this scene, we made Tony breathe helium,” the director recalled. "So his voice went from very high to normal in just seconds."

In places, Baker, with his ideas, intruded into the script rather unceremoniously. “According to the plot, the hero of Smith learned about the existence of aliens during a conversation in a bar, when, at the request of his future partner, the bartender lifted the skin on his neck and light poured from there,” Rick recalled. - That's all. I said, I'm sorry, but I don't think it's convincing.As a result, we came up with a face for the bartender that opens like a door. And so that inside there was a little green man sitting in front of the monitors. True, then we replayed everything and put a little man in the head of the deceased Mr. Gentle, and left the bartender alone. "

As a result, the future agent Jay encountered the aliens not in the bar, but at the headquarters of the Men in Black, where he met some "worm-like guys" with mustache, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, invented by Baker. “I thought there weren't enough aliens in the script,” the special effects master later explained. “But when I go to the cinema for a movie like this, I’m counting on something.” In this scene, where Tommy Lee asks the worm-like to throw coffee for him, Baker suggested using real dolls and puppeteers. The wires that controlled the animatronic puppets were hidden in the wall panel, while the puppeteers themselves sat behind the wall and saw what was happening on the monitor. “I've always dreamed of working with Kermit from Sesame Street, but I never imagined I'd come across something ten times better! Jones joked later. "Who knows, maybe someday Kermit will be just as lucky?"

As for the head of Mr. Gentle Rosenberg, played by Mike Nussbaum, the humanoid planted inside it had to be made in two sizes. The first, miniature, moved normally and worked in medium-sized shots, but was not suitable for large ones: it immediately became clear that he was not real. The second doll, with carefully designed external details, was made three meters high and filmed against the background of a blue screen, in order to then be inserted inside the head using the superposition method: in a reduced form, it looked very authentic. “We called this little one Chucky,” Sonnefeld recalled. "The whole scene is an alternation of big and small Chucky to music by Danny Elfman."

It was Chuckie who first saw Will Smith, who showed up for the shooting. The actor was pleasantly amazed and later said that, faced with an almost real alien, he "drove into the subject" on the fly and received a charge of inspiration for months ahead. Or he might not have received: in the end, in most of the scenes with the participation of aliens, he and Tommy Lee had to play in front of an expressionless blue screen - the rest was then completed by specialists from ILM.

Nobody knew how the scene with a flying ball, whose ricochets make a commotion at the headquarters of "LVC", would look like. She, in general, was not in the script, and no one gave sanctions for her shooting. Sonnenfeld, at his own risk and peril, filmed the rough shots and showed them to Sony's bosses, explaining that if you add a glowing ball here, you get a spectacular and funny parody of the "pinball". The authorities agreed and allocated more money.

A memorable episode in the tunnel, where special agents rush in their high-speed car along the ceiling to the singing of Elvis Presley, was filmed in the pavilion. The miniature tunnel was filled with cars, which were made for this purpose about eighty pieces, and the actors hanging upside down were filmed separately, so that later the camera's passage through the tunnel with the image of their faces was alternated. The episode cost its creators several hundred thousand dollars.

When it came time to shoot the final scene in which the agents were chasing a giant, evil cockroach in Corona Park, Sonnefeld got nervous. He had not liked the script finale very much before, and now, five months after the start of work, the last doubts that he was too sluggish have disappeared. A brighter climax was needed. But I was embarrassed by the almost exhausted budget of the picture and the fact that Rick Baker had already managed to build scenes for the filming of a giant animatronic cockroach three meters in height, in which he put all his love.

Barry Sonnefeld: “We ended up rewriting the script because we didn't have a normal ending. According to the original plan, Will and the Beetle discussed the nature of the universe.I convinced Sony that we don't need an argument, but an action, because we are shooting an action adventure after all. So we threw out the beetle Rick at the last moment: although he talked, he could not move. Rick, of course, was shocked ... "

Having begged money from his superiors, Barry decided to shoot the whole scene with an exploding cockroach against the background of a blue screen - in fact, the insect was instructed to draw and animate specialists from Industrial Light & Magic. They decided to deprive the computer cockroach of his voice: having shed the skin of a farmer, he lost all humanity and now only knew how to angrily roll his eyes, attack and bite. For expressiveness, they added extra legs and increased in size so that he could swallow the hero of Tommy Lee Jones.

“We had 45 shots of the beetle, and each shot cost about one hundred thousand dollars,” the director recalled. - The final scene had to spend an unbudgeted four and a half million. But it was a very good investment! "

The scenery for Crown Park, which hosted the 1939 World's Fair, was built in the gigantic Sony studio pavilion (once the scene of the yellow brick road for The Wizard of Oz). The agents' date with the virtual beetle was filmed for several weeks, and the actors had real grass under their feet all this time. The huge pavilion was not easy to illuminate: the green color of the grass absorbed the light, as did the black velvet that covered all the backdrops around the set. To prevent the greenery from fading, high humidity and low temperature were maintained in the pavilion. “It was cold and damp and uncomfortable there,” Tommy Lee Jones recalled with a shudder. And they were still flowers: in the same scene, in order to depict the movement of an actor swallowed by a cockroach through the intestines of an insect, he was shoved into a container with a disgusting-looking liquid gelatin. In turn, Smith bravely fought all day long with an empty space, throwing jokes of his own composition (so that the actor at least knew where to look, they held a cockroach's head on a stick in front of him).

How to piss off a space beetle? It's simple: you need to start trampling on the cockroaches crawling under your feet - the death of distant relatives will surely excite the alien. This brainstorming scene was written last weekend before filming and was brought to life almost immediately. True, real cockroaches were not allowed to be trampled by the Nature Conservation Society, whose representatives were present on the set and vigilantly watched that not a single insect was hurt, so Smith crushed the bags of mustard with his soles. He composed most of his accompanying monologue on the set.

Finishing touches

After editing a rough version of the tape, Sonnenfeld arranged a test screening and, to his chagrin, found out that the audience was confused in the plot. The script told about the confrontation between two races, the Baltians and the Arcyllians, who fought for an inexhaustible source of energy - a small galaxy. The third race - the beetles - decided to steal the galaxy so that the war would go on forever, because then the scavengers could continue to feast at the expense of the massacre of both sides. As a result, the ships of the enraged Baltians and Arcyllians began to fire at each other, and the Earth, located between them, took all the blows. In the script, this was said rather vaguely, and the director took a risky step, just a month and a half before the premiere, completely rewriting the plot: in a simplified version of the plot, the Baltians did not exist in nature, and the Arcyllians decided to burn the Earth just in case, so that the stolen galaxy did not get beetles.

In the film, the director found three scenes that allowed him to change the tone of the plot: an episode with a talking pug Frank, an episode with a large monitor at the headquarters of "LvCh", which highlighted ultimatums addressed to earthlings, and an episode in a Russian restaurant where two aliens were dining.In the final cut, the pug's words were changed, a new text was written on the monitor, and Karel Stryken (who played Larch from The Adams Family) and Mike Nussbaum were both made Arcillian and forced to communicate in an unknown language, signing the dialogue with captions with a completely new meaning. By the way, the chef in the restaurant, decorated with a balalaika and a portrait of Gorbachev on the wall, was played by a Soviet actor from Chisinau Boris Leskin - it is he who asks the hero of D'Onofrio: "Where is Ivan?" The waiter Ivan himself, as everyone remembers, at this time lies under the table, broken in half. Fortunately, for filming the scene, no one had to be broken in half: instead of a corpse, a mannequin was used, on whose head Rick Baker pulled a mask depicting his own face. The Oscar winner has always had an unusual sense of humor: even his own father, finding magazines about monsters in Rick's nightstand, for a long time seriously suspected that his son would grow up to be a sadist or masochist. Director Barry Sonnefeld also never missed an opportunity to have fun: at some of the jokes that were born on the set, he laughed so hard that he fell exhausted on the floor and writhed, clutching his stomach.

The sound of the neutralizer used by the "men in black" to instantly erase the memory of unwanted bystanders was borrowed by the tape's sound engineer from a charging flash.

The very last tweaks in the film were the first and last shots. At the beginning of the film, a computer dragonfly flies, accompanied by credits, over a miniature highway and a six-meter piece of the Arizona desert, built in the Sony Pictures pavilion. Although this episode was always present in the script, it looked too expensive, so money was given for it only six months after filming, when investors looked at the rough cut and decided that a dragonfly would not hurt for greater beauty. For this job, Sonnenfeld recruited Alan Munro, a special effects specialist with whom he worked on The Addams Family. The credits themselves were drawn by his other longtime colleague - the legendary artist Pablo Ferro, who stylized them under his own credits from Kubrick's “Doctor Strangelove”.

The last seconds of the film, in which the camera rapidly moved away from the central characters and found itself in deep space, were thought up by Sonnenfeld as a finishing touch. Sony's bosses liked the idea, and the director was allowed to spend nearly a million dollars on his idea. The famous shots were partly shot from a helicopter, partly painted by Eric Brevig and his assistants, and before the very first night all this was stitched into a single frame a la "reverse zoom".

The cat that remained in the Russian restaurant after the death of the Arkillian owner hums exactly like a zombie monster from the 1996 computer game Quake.

There was one more hitch regarding the scene in the shooting range, in which recruits were shooting at the silhouettes of aliens: Sonnefeld did not like the scene, and he was going to cut it, but first he wanted to show his superiors so that they could see for themselves that it was not funny. However, the authorities were delighted. Taking into account that the film was already short (in order to stretch it to 90 minutes, it was even necessary to slow down the speed of the final credits), Sonnefeld ultimately decided to leave everything as it is.

Outcome

After the release of the film, Vincent D'Onofrio, despite the death of his character, still had a hand in the franchise, voicing bugs in the animated series of the same name.

What happened next? On July 2, 1997, the premiere of "Men in Black" took place. The tape has collected nearly 600 million dollars worldwide. Ray-Ban has tripled its sunglasses sales. Based on the film, an animated series and a parody called "Men in White" was shot, a sequel, a triquel appeared and several computer games were released. Rick Baker won another Oscar for makeup. Universal Studios Orlando theme park now features a Men in Black theme ride.Marvel, which had already transferred the rights to the original work of Lowell Cunningham, has released an official comic adaptation. Will Smith remembered that he is also a musician, wrote the hit of the same name and expanded his army of fans even more (later he will give up the lead role in The Matrix and will prefer to star in Sonnefeld's Wild Wild West, which he will regret for a long time) ). After the premiere, the director was forced to appear on a popular talk show and explain to indignant Americans that, having made "worm-like guys" smokers, he was not at all trying to promote smoking among underage aliens.

And we? And we still don't know if aliens exist. And not even quite sure that the Americans flew to the moon ... What? Do you think otherwise? Moreover - do you own indisputable evidence of the existence of UFOs? Thank you for the signal, they have already left for you.

How to get rid of black cockroaches?

The real truth is that cockroach control is ALWAYS in professional hands. While you line the kitchen with cockroach traps and try to kill small pests, breeding continues behind cabinets and baseboards faster than you might imagine. Pesticides only help waste valuable time while you still have the edge. The glue trap can only serve to determine the degree of infestation. And insect sprays, as a rule, do not even reach those depths, cracks and cavities where parasites have settled and enjoy life.

In addition, the cockroaches themselves and their ovipositions are extremely sensitive to almost all over-the-counter poisons. By the way, you can add to the problem: if you step on a cockroach with a capsule of eggs, they will stick to your shoes, and you distribute them throughout the apartment.

Prevent cockroach infestation

While cockroach infestation is not necessarily a sign of uncleanness and lack of hygiene, whoever decomposes food in cupboards and pantries only cleans every few weeks and rarely ventilates creates an almost heavenly environment for pests.

Therefore, you have to be careful, and evil scanners should not even have a reason to break the relationship with you. So the cockroach hit you before:

Thorough Cleaning: Cockroaches love the dark, dusty corners under cabinets and kitchen appliances. You should thoroughly clean your kitchen and pantry every few weeks - especially where you don't normally look!
Safe storage of food: cockroaches bite through plastic, paper and cardboard. Therefore, you must store food in sealed containers made of solid material (glass or enamelware).
Indoor climate: Cockroaches love warmth and moisture. Therefore, you must ensure that the humidity in your apartment never exceeds 60%, and also ventilate for at least 10 minutes daily (ideally in a draft). You can check the humidity with a hygrometer.

How to prepare for the arrival of special services

In the event of a cockroach infestation, you will need a special service. While she arrives, there are many things you can do to make the fight as fast and efficient as possible.

You need to prepare your apartment for the fight against cockroaches:

Remove products. It is only when there are no other food sources available that insects react to the poisoned bait.
Remove shedding residues and egg cells. Thoroughly vacuum all baseboards, cabinets, crevices and joints with a powerful vacuum cleaner to remove as many egg bags and empty capsules as possible. Then you throw the removable dust bin outside your home.
Basic cleaning: Clean all infested areas thoroughly! It makes sense to hire a professional cleaning service.

What does a cockroach trap give?

From the cockroach trap, you can only determine how strong the infestation is. But no matter how many small pests get into the glue, you will not solve the problem radically.The problem is not with adult insects, but with eggs and larvae that have already spread throughout your kitchen.

If you want to buy a cockroach trap, then it is only for your self-awareness that you have taken steps to combat cockroaches.

Mechanical disposal

A rag and a vacuum cleaner will help you. Better to invite a cleaning company. At a minimum, you need a removable dust bin that you throw away far outside your home.

Chemical attack on black cockroaches

Chemical methods of dealing with Crimean cockroaches are associated with the use of poisonous substances and insecticides.

Chemicals effectively kill these insects, but have several disadvantages:

cockroaches quickly develop immunity to any kind of poisons and become immune to them;
cockroaches can hide and wait until the poison is no longer dangerous;
chemicals fill your apartment with an unpleasant odor;
toxic chemicals can be harmful to human and domestic animal health;
the use of chemicals is harmful to people with allergies;
when using chemicals, you must leave the area and then ventilate it.

Folk remedies for cockroaches

You can try making the following remedy yourself.

Recipe

What you need:

Boric acid powder
Honey, maple syrup, simple sugar and water syrup
Any flour that you have on hand
Ice cream stick
Mixing bowl

Number:

2 parts boric acid
1 part flour
Syrup or whichever sweetener you choose to make a thick mixture

Important note:

Boric acid powder is dangerous to inhale, it should not come into contact with the eyes, it should not be swallowed, so mix it all outside. Put on a respirator. For a 130 square meter home, take and mix a cup of boric acid with half a cup of flour and half a cup of syrup.

Heat treatment

Indoor pesticide-based cockroach control methods raise safety concerns. Nowadays, there are professional heat treatment systems available that allow you to fight cockroaches without fear of toxic chemical residues in the house.

The heat can be used to kill all kinds of cockroaches and their eggs, even in areas where pesticide fumigants and aerosols cannot penetrate. Insects are resistant to many pesticides, but cannot withstand high temperatures for long periods. In addition, heat can kill bacteria and viruses.

Folk ways to fight insects

You can scare off cockroaches with the help of strong odors - they are extremely sensitive to harsh aromas. You can use the following guidelines:

Indoor plant geranium. It is better not to put it in the bedroom - it can cause a headache. In other rooms, the flower will decorate the windows and scare off cockroaches with its smell.
You can rub the floors with turpentine if they are not varnished. The smell will not irritate a person, but it is intolerable to insects.
Sometimes vases with wormwood and laurel leaves are placed around the house.
In a bucket of water, 1 tbsp is diluted. l. ammonia. Then you should wash all the floors in the apartment. Cockroaches scatter, freeing the room.

Given that cockroaches visit their homes at night, many use insect traps. To do this, you need to take a can, pour mayonnaise or beer on the bottom, grease the walls from the inside with vegetable oil. In order for the cockroaches to get into the jar, it is better to lean a ruler or rail against it. Cockroaches will climb inside, but they will not be able to get out back.

The use of the sticky tape method is recommended. To do this, double-sided tape is attached to the cardboard, and food bait is left in the center. Cockroaches will tend to eat, sticking their paws to the tape. Boric acid can be added to the bait for greater reliability.

Boric acid is a deadly poison for cockroaches.People and animals will not be harmed in this case. A cockroach, touching this substance, will be paralyzed. This will not happen immediately. Having reached its nest, it will come into contact with other individuals, poisoning the rest. This tool is very convenient for the destruction of cockroaches, whose home is the sewer. Boric acid itself is not interesting to them. The effect will be if you add it to food bait.

Sewer cockroaches sit in pipes most of the time. In this case, pipe cleaning agents are used. They must be used regularly, at the same time pouring into all pipes and drains. The presence of insects in the house is unpleasant for any person, but do not despair and panic. The fight must be waged together and with perseverance - then you can achieve positive results.

Features that affect the survivability of cockroaches

A female can mate with a male only once, and this will be enough to produce offspring without a male for the rest of her life.
A cockroach can live a week without a head.
They spend ¾ of their lives alone.
Cockroaches run at 4.8 km / h. This is very fast given their small size and short legs.
Cockroaches can hold their breath for 40 minutes.
They can eat once a month (they can also eat everything).
It is difficult to catch a cockroach - it senses the approach of an enemy with hairs on its legs and changes its direction of movement 25 times per second.
The theory that cockroaches will survive a nuclear explosion is scientifically proven: they have a slow cell division cycle, and radiation is not dangerous for them. They can withstand radiation, which increases the lethal dose to humans by 16 times.
The cockroach has two pairs of wings: the upper leathery elytra protects the body, and the thin wings underneath allow the cockroaches to fly.