It's So Hot...Cockroaches Are Flying

An American Cockroach, the most common cockroach in New York City, which are known to fly when temperatures exceed 100 degrees.

How hot is it? It's so hot that one of the city's most loathsome creatures has become even more loathsome. 

You're most likely to find an American Cockroach in the city. For these cockroaches, beneath the first set of wings, which are used for protection, is another pair, which is used for flying. As DNA Info first reported Friday, this hot, muggy weather, with heat indexes putting us into the 100s, is the perfect condition for cockroaches to fly. Because, like us, they're just trying to stay cool.

"At those temperatures, when they gets exceedingly high, moisture in their bodies is evaporating from the little spaces in between their hardened segments, so they're definitely trying to move around to cool off," said Dominic Evangelista, who has a Ph.D from Rutgers and an unholy expertise in cockroaches.

Evangelista says they usually glide, rather than take off like a fly. 

"They get energy from the warmth around them, they're less active when it's cooler," Evangelista said. He suspects if you see a flying cockroach, "They're probably moving to new areas to find new mates, find food, if they're overheating, they could be moving to find a nook or cranny with a better microclimate for them."

In other words, they're just trying to find a spot to get cool. Like when we go to the beach.