COCKROACHES: This six-legged critter, with 18 knees can live without food for an entire month and hold its breath for forty minutes if necessary.  Even if you cut off its head, it would still run around the house for about a week before dying of thirst because its brain is not in its head. It’s scattered throughout its body. Young ones can squeeze through a crevice no thicker than a tip of a dime, while the older and fatter ones may need access equivalent to the thickness of the edge of a quarter. It’ll certainly wear you out trying to chase it. It can run up to three miles in a hour before calling it a day.  The female mates only once and is pregnant for the rest of her life!
	ANTS:  Ant identification is not easy. Ants are social insects, living in colonies that may number thousands. Ant queens lay eggs. Ant colonies of some species have only one queen while other species may have many queens. Worker ants forage for food for the colony, care for the queen and the young, and defend the colony. Workers can be one size (monomorphic) or two or more sizes (polymorphic). Colonies may reproduce by swarming or budding. Ant nests commonly consist of underground tunnels and chambers. Some species make mounds of earth or ant hills. The queensstay in the nest and the workers bring them food. It is the workers you may see in and around the structure.
	SPIDERS: There are about 34,000 species of spiders.  The skeleton of a spider is located on the outside of the body.  most of the 105 spider families have venom glands. Once prey is caught, the spider injects venom and other digestive juices into it. The prey's insides turn to liquid, and are sucked up as a kind of "soup."
	CRICKETS: Crickets are an occasional invader that can become a general nuisance pest and cause considerable damage when they invade a home. The house cricket and the field cricket are the most commonspecies invading homes. Cricket chirping is an annoyance to many home owners and may create many sleepless nights. Crickets that get inside the home will feed on cloth and paper products and any uncontained food. Enormous numbers of crickets congregate around lights at night, making roads slick and public places and yards unattractive.
	HONEY BEES: The honey bee is the only bee, or wasp, that produces a persisting perennial colony. During winter, honeybees survive clustered together within their hive. The queen, the only fertile female, begins to lay eggs in late winter and the young are fed on stored pollen and nectar. At midwinter the size of the colony may only number around 10,000, but numbers increase with the presence of flowering plants that provide food.
	MICE: The House Mouse has some rather aggravating habits, but does that necessarily mean it poses a problem for us? Well, yes, as a matter of fact it does. This animal is one that we really would prefer not to have to live with. Even its scientific name - Mus musculus - describes it well, for in a general way this name means "little thief". When living in close association with people the House Mouse makes its living by stealing our food and our possessions, so it isn't a good tenant.
	FLEAS: The cat flea is the most frequently found flea, although the dog, human and stick-tight fleas are also found. Fleas may attack a wide variety of warm-blooded animals, including dogs, humans, chickens, rabbits, squirrels, rats and mice.
	TICKS: Ticks grow from the egg to the adult by what is called simple metamorphosis, meaning their appearance does not change much. They emerge from the egg as a tiny tick, shed their skin some months later to become the second stage and a slightly larger tick, and then shed their outer skin one last time to become the adult tick, at which time males and females mate and large numbers of new eggs are laid. The life cycle of ticks, from egg to adult, generally takes around 2 years.
	FLIES: Several kinds of non-biting flies can be found in and around farms, residences and foodhandling establishments. Filth flies can usually be grouped according to their habits and appearance as houseflies and their relatives; flesh flies; blow flies and bottle flies; filter flies; soldier flies; and vinegar (fruit) flies. Flies seek breeding places where garbage, animal droppings or vegetation residues accumulate.
	TERMITES: These busy little bugs work non-stop, 24 hours each day, gathering food materials for the benefit of their growing colony. They may be destructive to our homes but they live fascinating lives too.
	BED BUGS: Maybe you’ve read about them in the news yourself, but Bedbugs Are Back. After a 60 year virtual absence in the U.S. we now are finding these blood suckers commonly throughout the country, and your options for preventing them and dealing with them are discussed.