A-Maze-ing Cockroaches

If we drag the food through the

maze, in a path, then the cockroaches will find the food faster than if we don’t.

Hypothesis

Abstract

The purpose of our experiment is to determine how strong a cockroach’s sense of smell is. The first step was to build a maze with food at the end, which we had the cockroaches navigate. The next step was to perform several trials to find the maximum distance the cockroaches can sense food. We tried both putting the food at the end of the maze, and dragging the food through the maze to leave a sort of “trail” for the cockroach to track. We expected the cockroaches to locate the food at the end of the maze when we drag the food through the maze faster than when we put the food at the end of the maze.

The Maze

We used two types

of cockroaches:--Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches--Giant South American Cockroaches

The Cockroaches

Madagascan Hissing

GiantSouth American

Maze

--Made out of poster paper, paper towel rolls, and construction paper. Painted with non-toxic tempura paint--Bat gel/ Turtle gel

Materials

First, we constructed our maze. For the first few trials, we put a

piece of bat gel somewhere in the maze and gave the cockroaches five minutes each to find the food.

We dabbed the food in a “trail” for the cockroaches to follow.

Procedure

The only error’s we encountered

throughout the trials of our project were the Madagascan cockroaches hissing, because they were not willing to participate, they would not participate because they weren’t hungry, and also, the cockroaches getting themselves lodged under the paper towel rolls on the sides.

Error

Used a Madagascan

Hissing Cockroach. Unable to find the

food in five minutes. Hid in a crack; All cracks were sealed in following experiments

Trial One

For this trial,

we used a South American Cockroach.

Found the food within ten seconds.

Trial Two

Used

Madagascan Hissing Cockroach.

Gave five minutes, did not find the food.

Trial Three

Used South

American Cockroach.

Gave five minutes, walked past food multiple times.

Trial Four

Used

Madagascan Hissing Cockroach

Fifty-Three seconds: got stuck in a paper towel roll; would not cooperate further.

Trial Five

Used South

American Cockroach.

Found food within a minute and thirty two seconds.

Trial Six

Used

Madagascan Hissing Cockroach.

Gave five minutes, walked over food multiple times.

Trial Seven

Used South

American Cockroach.

Gave five minutes, took four minutes and fifty three seconds to find the food.

Trial Eight

Used

Madagascan Hissing Cockroach.

Gave five minutes, continuously hissed at us.

Trial Nine

Used South

American Cockroach.

Gave five minutes, took two minutes and nine seconds to find food.

Trial Ten

The Madagascan Hissing

Cockroaches failed to find the food five out of five times

The Giant South American Cockroaches, on the other hand, only failed once and found the food four out of five times.

Data

With our experiment, we attempted to find how strong a

cockroach’s sense of smell is. Through our experiments, we found that the cockroaches found the food more often if we left a trail for them to follow. We also found that the Giant South American Cockroaches found the food more frequently than the Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches.

In conclusion, we proved our hypothesis correct. The cockroaches found the food faster when we left a trail. This shows that cockroaches have a poor sense of smell. Surprisingly, we also found that Giant South American cockroaches have a better sense of smell than the Madagascan Hissing.

Conclusion