Heading off a Problem

Abstract

As a movie-going scientist, I like to watch out for the science in science fiction films. I find that usually this doesn’t detract much from watching most science fiction films, in that scientific explanations rarely occupy more than a couple of sentences in the script. Particularly in insectrelated science fiction films, it’s usually a simple matter to identify the entomological errors in the statements made by the supposedly knowledgeable characters in the film, as, for example, when Dr. Gates, Dr. Susan Tyler’s entomologist mentor in the film Mimic (1997), expounds on the “kind of simplicity that governs the Phylum Insecta.” But I have to confess that I was taken aback by a plot development in the sequel to Mimic, Mimic 2: Hardshell, which presented a challenge to my entomological expertise. Mimic, described by critic Roger Ebert as “a loyal occupant of its genre” (http://www.suntimes.com/ ebert/ebert_reviews/1997/08/082212.html), recounts how genetically engineered cockroaches in the subways of New York evolve to resemble humans and prey on them; in Mimic 2, the so-called “Judas Breed” cockroaches are back, and they seem to be selectively killing only those men that Remi Panos, the entomologist/schoolteacher who had only about 10 minutes of screen time in the first film, goes out with. Setting aside the myriad other improbabilities associated with human-sized man-eating cockroaches as well as the real-life relationship problems of female entomologists, the plot device that caused me greatest consternation was the plan concocted by Detective Klaski to dispatch the Judas Breed human-like cockroach by decapitating it with a paper cutter. Fortunately for single men in New York City, Remi knows that “you can’t even make a scratch unless it’s in molt....Besides, you know what happens when you take the head off a cockroach?...It dies, about nine days from now, when it finally starves to death.” To make a long story short, the Judas Breed is eventually decapitated with a pair of oversize scissors, leaving Remi and a surviving male character (who undoubtedly owes his good fortune to the fact that he’s too young to be her boyfriend) trapped in her apartment while the dying Judas Breed blocks the exit for eight more days. It’s always a little annoying to feel inferior to movie entomologists, so it was disconcerting to realize that I couldn’t belittle the office-supply-based integrated pest management plan that had been implemented because I didn’t know how long cockroaches can live without their heads. A search through the available literature reveals a remarkable dearth of longevity studies on decapitated cockroaches. This is not to say there is a dearth of studies on decapitated cockroaches. In fact, it’s alarming how many studies do involve decapitation in general; a search of the 1983–2004 Current