This $80 native cockroach is a popular pet, but there’s a dark side to the industry

While people pay good money to get rid of cockroaches and other creepy-crawlies, Kris Messenger has dedicated her life to spruiking the benefits of bugs.

The insect ecologist said invertebrates were nature’s clean-up crew.

They recycle debris, clean water, prune and pollinate plants, control pests, condition soil and are “fast food” for other creatures.

A popular pet, at a cost

Ms Messenger said some native cockroaches commanded a high price.

“One giant burrowing cockroach that someone’s just caught in the wild is anything up to $80 each,” Ms Messenger said.

It can live up to 10 years in the wild, and 15 years or more in captivity.

It’s the heaviest cockroach in the world, weighing up to 30 grams and growing up to 80 millimetres.

She said an uptick in Australians keeping invertebrates as pets was partly thanks to the shrinking size of homes.

“Backyards are getting smaller and lives are getting busier,” she said.

“Some invertebrates require less hands-on care and attention. 

“You don’t have to walk them or register them, and people see them as being low-cost and low-maintenance.”

Ms Messenger said insects were relatively easy for children to keep, so parents considered them a practical first pet.

But she said critters lives should be valued in the same way as traditional pets, as some people treat bugs as “disposable”.

“There is this idea that ‘little things lead little lives’, and I want people to understand that’s not necessarily the case,” she said.

“Some spiders live more than 30 years. I had a centipede for 15 years. Invertebrates you might pay a small amount of money for may outlive you.”

A special interest turned passion

Ms Messenger has spent the past 20 years dedicated to educating Australians about bugs.

She is autistic with a special interest in invertebrates —and said she was not alone.

“I think Pokémon may have something to answer for in that department, I think it’s a gateway,” she said.

She said invertebrates might appeal to neurodivergent people because of the intimate observations and information deep-dives available.

“I do meet a lot of neurodivergent kids. Stereotypically there are little niche special interest groups; trains and planes, dinosaurs, birds, fluffy animals, and then there’s the bug group,” she said. 

“If you’re a little kid you can keep your spider in your bedroom and engage with it on a very personal level.

Dark side to growth in industry 

There is, however, a dark side to the growing interest in owning invertebrates as pets. 

Ms Messenger said the invertebrate industry was aware of illegal poachers trading insects collected from protected areas like national parks, claiming they were ethically captive-bred and ultimately misleading customers.

“If somebody is supplying 200 scorpions every month, or even more to various pet shops, they’re almost certainly not captive breeding them,” she said.

Invertebrates Australia managing director Dr Kate Umbers said it meant insects cannot do their special job on a planet already under stress by land clearing and climate change.

“We’d all be outraged if people were taking a platypus or a koala out of the wild and selling them online,” she said.

“If that animal can no longer do its function in the ecosystem, our natural places can collapse.”

Native wildlife poaching is regulated by each state and territory, and the federal government said it was a trade increasingly in the remit of organised crime.

Penalties for taking protected wildlife without permits are varied across Australia.

Dr Umbers said policing what was coming out of national parks was a logistical challenge, but bug lovers wanting a “cutey crawly” pet could help make the industry viable and ethical by doing their homework.

“They need to be empowered to make good decisions to make sure they’re getting their pets from people who are not taking things from the wild and selling them directly on, but are rather rearing things sustainably,” she said.

“Buy from reputable breeders with records. If a deal looks too good to be true, it’s because it is.”

Ms Messenger said she was hopeful about the future for bugs, as growing insect interest could help solve the sticky situation.

“There’s a lot of young people coming up through the ranks now who have been influenced and there’s been a paradigm shift around the way we treat bugs,” she said.