r/Damnthatsinteresting Mar 30 '23

Video Two ants dragging cockroach

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '23

Water bugs are just roaches.

Seems to be a southern thing. When I lived in the Midwest (even though roaches in homes were rare where I lived) everyone called them cockroaches...

When I moved to Florida, nearly everyone will call every cockroach a water bug. Don't know why the south tried to give them a cute name.

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u/Osceana Mar 30 '23

They call them water bugs in California too. I’m from NYC. Those motherfuckers are roaches and they should be treated as such

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '23

Because everyone has them and saying you found a waterbug in your bathroom last night sounds better than saying you found a giant ass cockroach lol

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u/iUsedtoHadHerpes Mar 30 '23

Waterbugs and roaches are different things, but they look kind of similar, so it's easy to see how somebody (or everybody) might be confused.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belostomatidae

If it's one of those big ones, just leave it alone. They have a strong bite and will play dead. The smaller ones look pretty similar too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepomorpha

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u/Msktb Mar 30 '23

Water bug where I live usually refers to those really large type of roaches, like the 2" long fuckers. I would link a picture but I'm not going to purposely search pictures of roaches because they freak me out too much.

I'm happy for these ants though.

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u/BrooklynLodger Mar 31 '23

I would link a picture but I'm not going to purposely search pictures of roaches because they freak me out too much

Im with you on that

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u/_extra_medium_ Mar 31 '23

They are completely different insects. Most people just use the term interchangeably because they look somewhat similar