Story By: Gheorghi Caraseni, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/VeterinaryClinicLimpopo
This is the moment Russian medics perform surgery on a massive cockroach for the first time in order to save its life.
The Russian clinic performed the operation to save the archimandrite cockroach in the city of Krasnoyarsk, in the Krasnoyarsk Krai region of south-eastern Russia.
Dr Dania Pooh, the local vet who carried out the operation, said: “Krasnoyarsk veterinarians performed for the first time an operation to remove a female cockroach-archimandrite capsule, in which the offspring (ooteca) matures. Without surgery, the insect could die, but now nothing threatens its life”.
She added: “We received a call from the owner of the cockroach saying the female gave birth to 10-20 offspring, but, unfortunately, the capsule in which the ooteca is stored wasn’t gone. We decided to operate on the insect and removed the capsule.
“The uniqueness of the operation is that this is the very first case of an operation being carried out on a cockroach in Krasnoyarsk as no one had previously operated on this type of animal”.
Pooh noted that, since the case is unique in the practice of Krasnoyarsk doctors, they consulted with colleagues from Spain, who have studied in detail the structure of the body of the insect.
The main difficulty during the operation was that the cockroach was small – compared to their usual patients – and the anaesthesia mask did not completely fit it so the doctor and assistant were forced to make it inhale the anaesthetic.
Pooh added that preparing the patient for the operation and its subsequent implementation took about an hour. Now the animal has returned to its owner, it feels good and can already eat on its own.
However, it can no longer have offspring.
Archimandrite cockroaches – also known as giant forest cockroaches – are South American insects that lives in the forests of Costa Rica and Panama.
The length of the adult is 75-85 mm (in large females up to 100 mm), and archimandrites are viviparous insects.
The cockroach lives about two years and usually has offspring twice in its life.
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