Cockroaches are fun to keep...

Years ago, a long long time ago in fact, I use to be an adventurous kampung kid (village boy) when I was living with good old grand auntie.

Times were good then, and I was a mere boy of 7 or 8. I love hunting for wild things, I collected some 70 ladybugs and have them wrap around my mango tree in the backyard once, they form a beautiful canvas of red and yellow.

I used to have a pet green snake, and it was cute, not to mention it died rather early. I believe it was around 7 or 8 years old when it died. Probably around 16 inches long and was not poisonous.

The one I had most fond memories of....now that I think back...
was Tanker

Once a long blue moon ago...I had a pet cockroach.

YES, a cockroach.

It was one of those multi-plated ones that you find in the wild, it has no smell, and is about palm sized large.

I kept it in a box in my backpack, and it is rather mild, feeds on dead vegetation and I kept it with a giant milipede I caught in the outdoors too. They make good friends together, despite one avoiding the other...(I had a feeling all the time the Milipede was the underdog, there were bite marks on the body sometimes...)

This cockroach does not bite, or fly...it makes for a sticky partner if you let it crawl up your arm.

Why did I keep it? I dunno, it was rare...

I once caught a normal house cockroach and set it inside the tank, I believe due to nature, the pet seems to intimidate the small one, each time Tanker moves, the house cockroach takes several steps back, if it climbs, the cockroach climbs down and hides behind some leaves.

Proof of evolutionary superiority.

All in all, Tanker was a wise old thing, despite its size, it is rather quick on the feet, and several times I let it out onto the floor it would whizz for the door, indicating its dislike for me. It also likes wild grass areas, and when I do let it out, I mustn't leave it alone, for it will burrow and I may never find him again.

In a way, we shared many a happy times together, consider it was rather funny to see it move. At times, Tanker would move inside his tank, like a Cha Cha dancer, it would whizz forward, then several steps backward, and then forward. I still wonder why it does that, but I always call it dancing.

It succumbed to old age some time when I was around 10 or 11. It lived a good year in my house, possibly, I can almost say I feel sad for it and decide to give it a proper burial. I have since moved from that place, but I know, evident when i did go back to that old place once last year, that the mango tree was still there. If anything, Tanker must have help it grow very well indeed.