Word: cockroaches
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USDA officials say that Roth's work was instrumental in helping them decide how to approach the growing cockroach infestation problem in Florida. "[The Asian cockroach] has a present potential to be a pest problem, so [Roth's] work is very significant in defining the pest problem," says Richard Patterson, research leader at the USDA's division on insects affecting man and animals...
Identifying a cockroach is no simple task. There are currently about 4000 described cockroach species, and Roth says he thinks there are "at least twice as many undescribed species." A biologist must determine that the organism has not previously been assigned to a species before he or she can say it is a new species. To ensure this, the entomologist must turn to detailed descriptions of the species prepared by his colleagues...
What has been occupying most of Roth's time these days is a much more extensive research project--the revision of an entire family of Australian cockroaches. The project is based out of the centerpiece of Roth's MCZ office, a cabinet about four-feet high with four compartments, each holding about 20 trays of pinned cockroach specimens. totaling about 6000 specimens...
Roth, who received his Ph.D. in insect physiology in 1946, is the specialist to whom biologists turn most frequently for information on cockroaches. "He's probably the foremost cockroach taxonomist. He has a world-renowned reputation. He's a very brilliant and helpful individual," Patterson says...
While Roth studies only pinned specimens now, in his earlier years with the army, he published some of the basic studies on cockroach behavior. Before chemical sex attractants were termed pheromones, Roth discovered the effect that these female secretions have on the males of their species. The author of 163 publications has also described the life history of several species previously unknown to entomologists...