Bacterial Flora Found in Common Indoor Insects
Abstract
Abstract
The most common indoor arthropods that are considered pests include cockroaches, flies, and ants. They are often associated with unsanitary conditions because they thrive in environments with high organic content such as sewage, garbage, and other decomposing material. Although these insects are very capable of hosting and transmitting bacteria, entomologists and medical professionals rarely consider them to be of medical significance. As a result, an experiment was conducted in which sticky traps were utilized to collect specimen within various buildings on Texas A&M University’s campus. The collected specimens included cockroaches, house flies, fire ants, and a cricket. The specimens were then swabbed on agar plates and the plates were left for 72 hours to allow for microbial growth. In addition, different segments of the captured specimens were swabbed to determine which area of the exoskeleton contained the highest concentration of bacteria. The results indicated that all the specimens had microbial growth on their plates. However, the cockroach, Periplaneta fuliginosa, and cricket, Acheta domesticus, had the most bacterial growth out of all the specimen. In both Periplaneta fuliginosa and Acheta domesticus, the wings were the areas that showed the most microbial growth. The presence of microbes indicates that these specimens do have the potential to have medical importance because they are found in indoor environments where human activity is prevalent. The fact that most of the growth developed from their wings indicates that they could easily spread pathogens during flight by releasing it into the air.
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