Is There Any Place On Earth Where Cockroaches Don't Exist? Can They Survive In Space?

Cockroaches can endure weeks without food or water. (AI Generated/News18 Hindi)

Despite their reputation for surviving virtually anywhere, from city drains to depths of nearly four kilometres underground, cockroaches are not present in every corner of the planet. These resilient insects have endured for millions of years, raising a natural question: Is there any place on Earth where cockroaches don’t exist? Surprisingly, there are a few such locations, and here’s where they’re missing.

In the 1980s and 90s, miners in South Africa reached 1,050 metres deep in the Tau Tona gold mine and observed cockroaches breeding there. India’s Kolar Gold Field mine, now closed, revealed thousands of cockroaches as deep as 2.5 kilometres. Similarly, South Africa’s Mponeng gold mine, which descends 4 kil