How Long Does It Take a Cockroach to Starve?

Roaches have legendary abilities to sustain themselves on very little. You may have heard the incredible myth about roaches being the only animal to survive a nuclear war, or being able to live for months without food or water?

Cockroaches rarely starve to death naturally because their diet is so amazingly varied and nonspecific. Roaches are omnivores and scavengers. They are famous for eating anything and everything. A cockroach will survive by eating virtually any organic substance available including upholstery, cardboard, glue, hair, loose fibers, and much more.

Anything derived from plant or animal material can be consumed by cockroaches. Just think about that for a minute. Look at the different objects in the room that you are in right now and think about which ones are made from animal or plant products–this is most everything.

Therefore, a roach almost never starves to death naturally in the wild. But the question of how long the roach can go without food and water before it dies is still an interesting one, and thankfully scientists have found an answer to the question.

How long can a roach live without food and water?

In order to determine how long it takes before a roach starves to death, researchers put them inside artificial enclosures without access to any food or water. They then observed them and recorded how long the cockroaches could endure.  The research results showed that cockroaches survive for about 7 to 10 days without water, and it takes about 30 days without food for a roach to starve to death.

So cockroaches are incredible survivors. It’s true that roaches would be one of the last animals to be eradicated from the earth in case of a worldwide catastrophe. Think about how difficult it would be to kill the last cockroach on earth, and imagine how many other animals would still be alive if that time ever came. Not many.