That’s Jackie (munching on the cucumber slice), the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach that I got to name as a Valentine’s gift from Jon.
How do I know that Cockroach is Jackie?
Well, I don’t really. But when I texted a picture of her to my animal-loving friend Jackie (who I named the cockroach after) she wrote back…”Awww! She’s a hungry foodie just like me”.
So that will have to do.
I have to admit the last time we went to the Bronx Zoo and visited the Madagascar exhibit, I didn’t notice the cockroaches. There were too many cute and furry animals as well as an alligator to see. But this time I bypassed them all to get a look at the Cockroaches. Which wasn’t hard to do because no one else seemed interested in them.
Most people just cringe at the word cockroach. Like my mother did when I showed her a picture of one of them. She grew up in tenements in the Bronx and lived with plain old Bronz Cockroaches.
But a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach sounds pretty exotic.
I thought it was pretty smart of the people at the Bronx Zoo, to raise money by giving people a chance to name a cockroach and also making them aware of the insects at the same time. I didn’t have time to find out anything about them. But I’ll save that for the next trip to the zoo, when I go to visit Jackie again.
