Ologies with Alie Ward

Bonus Episode: COCKROACH MILK with Joshua Benoit and Sinead English
Released: October 20, 2025

Overview

This bonus episode plunges into the world of cockroach milk—a bizarre and fascinating secretion produced by the Pacific beetle mimic cockroach, Diploptera punctata. Host Alie Ward invites entomologists Dr. Joshua Benoit (University of Cincinnati) and Dr. Sinead English (University of Bristol) to unpack the science of insect lactation, the evolutionary context of live birth in insects, and the tantalizing (and slightly comical) prospects of cockroach milk as a human food. True to Ologies’ form, the conversation is a delightful cocktail of hard science, weird trivia, personal anecdotes, and infectious curiosity—answering all the questions you never knew you had about milky bugs.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Why Cockroach Milk? [00:59]

• Alie recounts her near-miss with tasting cockroach milk on The Tonight Show, after months of laboriously sourcing samples, only to be thwarted at the last minute by "Safety Steve."
• Her obsession with cockroach milk started with a 2017 NPR article hailing it as "the most nutritious substance on earth."
• She describes the Diploptera punctata cockroach as a "beetle mimic" found in tropical locales.

2. What is "Bug Pregnancy?" [06:14]

• Gravid vs. Pregnant:
  • (Josh Benoit, 06:24):

    “They can be gravid... usually like carrying eggs... what we kind of call actual pregnancy is when they have this post-egg stage that they hold within their body.”

  • Tsetse flies and Diploptera punctata roaches both carry live young inside, with a brood sac that functions somewhat like a placenta.
• Viviparity in Insects:
  • Live birth has evolved more times in insects than in vertebrates:
    (Josh Benoit, 08:22):

    “[Live birth has] actually evolved independently more times... maybe five or six times more in insects [than vertebrates].”

3. The Pacific Beetle Cockroach: Unique Biology [07:25]

• Species Spotlight:
  • Diploptera punctata is the only truly viviparous (live-bearing) cockroach species.
  • Sinead notes:

    “They don't look like [house] cockroaches... they're quite pretty… the only truly viviparous cockroaches.”

• Why Live Birth?
  • Predation avoidance and resource uncertainty theorized as evolutionary pressures:
    (Sinead English, 09:05):

    “Keeping them inside until they're a bit more developed and then they come out a little bit less vulnerable... helps increase the general evolutionary success.” (Josh Benoit, 10:01):
    “If you give birth to a little baby and they can't get food right away, they're probably going to die…”

4. Anatomy of Insect "Lactation" [11:05]

• Synchronization: Insects like tsetse flies and Pacific beetle cockroaches "nurse" their young while still pregnant—different from the mammalian pattern.
• Brood Sac: Small number of embryos (8-18 max) develop inside a brood sac (pseudo-placenta).
• Gestation Duration:
  • Cockroach: 70–90 days
  • Tsetse fly: ~9–10 days
• Birth Process:
  • Babies are born small and "inflate" after emerging, compared to a “clown car” (Benoit, 13:39).

    “The reason there's not the space is as they're emerging, they're actually inflating with air at that point…”

5. Cockroach Milk: From Production to Function [12:03]

• How is Milk Delivered & Consumed?

  • Embryos develop in a thick, "toothpaste or tapioca pudding"-like bath:
    (Josh Benoit, 12:21):

    “It's kind of like they're in a bath of toothpaste. It's pretty thick... they end up eating that... then they can pretty much darken and go and they're in a much better place.”

• Nutrition from Nothing:

  • Cockroaches produce highly nutritious “milk” from generalist diets (dog food, etc). (Sinead English, 15:05):

    “They manage to make quite a lot from not very much.”

• Molecular Makeup:

  • High in proteins (lipocalins), lipids, little sugar.
    (Josh Benoit, 15:43):

    “It's just milk... a class of lipocalins... small proteins... usually something like fat-soluble vitamins... really similar to milk.”

  • Contains beneficial microbiota, mirroring some aspects of mammalian milk
    (Sinead English, 16:44):

    “They also have beneficial microbes which are transferred in the milk…”

6. Could Cockroach Milk Be the Next Superfood? [23:51]

• Nutritional Hype vs. Practicality:
  • Despite being dubbed more nutritious than buffalo milk, scaling production for human consumption is essentially impossible at present. (Josh Benoit, 24:16):

    “Taking it to where we're having cockroach milk lattes... probably we would get it more from someone grinding up the cockroaches... rather than an actual milk product.”

  • Conversation about entomophagy and safety for people with shellfish allergies.

7. Milking a Cockroach: Not Like a Cow! [25:48]

• No Nipples Involved:
  • Extraction involves removing embryos and/or using absorbent material in the brood sac—no mammalian-like milking. (Josh Benoit, 25:58):

    “No, it does not [have nipples]… you can obtain [milk] by either removing it from the guts of the developing embryos... or put an absorbent material into the brood sac...”

8. What is Cockroach Milk Like? [27:48]

• Consistency:

  • When collected and diluted, resembles “1% milk” (Josh Benoit, 28:23).

• Taste:

  • No scientist present has tasted it.
    (Josh Benoit, 28:52):

    "I've never tasted it." Humorous family dynamics:
    “I'm pretty sure if I ever actually did try it...[my wife] would probably not allow me to come home after admitting it for a few days.”

  • Sinead is “quite intrigued to taste it” and would consider trying it if her lab produced a sample.

• Alie’s Quest:

  • Alie describes her arduous journey to obtain just a few milliliters, which are now stored at the American Museum of Natural History.

    "If you work there, don't drink my cockroach milk in the office fridge.” [27:39]

9. Science and Collaboration [31:42]

• Continued Work:
  • Josh expects to continue collaborating with Sinead for “the next 15, 20 years… there’s so much more to do.”
  • Sinead:

    “Insects are such an unknown frontier for some of these questions.” [31:52]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alie on insect weirdness:

  “So, yeah, this single cockroach species that makes milk, Diploptera punctata, is a beetle mimic. And the... they're these cute little dusty brown critters.” [07:44]

• Josh’s “clown car” analogy:

  “Their birth process effectively reminds me of like... the clown car... you see the mom and like a couple [babies] come out, and then a couple more, and then a few more... as they're emerging, they're inflating with air at that point.” [13:39]

• On “milking” methods:

  “No, there's no actual nipples involved in the milk processes of cockroaches or tsetse flies.” —Josh Benoit [25:58]

• Alie’s plea:

  “If you work [at the Museum], don't drink my cockroach milk in the office fridge.” [27:39]

Important Timestamps

• [00:59] Alie explains how her quest for cockroach milk began
• [05:02] Guest introductions: Sinead English and Josh Benoit
• [06:14–07:44] Pregnant bugs: gravid vs. pregnant, live birth evolution, Diploptera punctata as a unique cockroach
• [11:05–13:39] The brood sac & “clown car” birth analogy
• [15:05–16:44] Nutrition, diet, and milk composition
• [23:51–25:04] Future of cockroach milk as a commercial or food product
• [25:48–26:54] How cockroach milk is actually extracted
• [27:48–29:35] Describing the milk, taste tests, and humorous family asides
• [31:42–32:02] Ongoing collaboration and the “frontier” of insect science

Tone & Language

The episode is conversational, clever, and full of irreverent enthusiasm. Alie’s humor (“If you’re feeling entrepreneurial... Brood Sack Diaper Bags!”) keeps the weirdness approachable. The scientists join in with vivid analogies (“clown car” birth) and self-deprecating honesty about not having tasted their own research prize.

Conclusion

This bonus episode is a quirky deep-dive into one of the insect world’s most bizarre secrets. You'll learn surprising facts about insect reproduction, the molecular composition of cockroach milk, evolutionary parallels to mammals, and why you (probably) won't be pouring it into your coffee anytime soon. More than anything, it’s a celebration of the strangeness and charm of scientific curiosity—proving, once again, that everything in the whole wide world is riveting.

For more on these scientists' work and to see Alie's Tonight Show segment, check the show notes or visit alieward.com/ologies/roachmilk