VIDEO: The jumping cockroach

You weren't planning on sleeping tonight, right?

VIDEO: The jumping cockroach

Aside from our jealousy that they'll survive the eventual apocalypse, our overriding feeling towards cockroaches is fear.

They're naturally odious, surprisingly large critters that bask in our warm kitchens and gain strength through our terror (we think).

By some freak, ungodly act of Satan, a new breed has been discovered that combines all of the reasons we already hate cockroaches with the ability to leap through the air, travelling at distances of nearly 50 times its body length in one hop.

The South African villain has been handed the monstrous name of Saltoblattella montistabularis, or leaproach as us laymen are terming it.

Apparently, this particular species has evolved this way, not to evade predators, but to spread the search for a mate and to hunt out its favourite food: grasshopper poo.

But don't worry yeah, because it's more scared of you or something, right?

(Image: YouTube)

[via Gizmodo]

Marc Chacksfield
Content Director

As Content Director of Shortlist, Marc likes nothing more than to compile endless lists of an evening by candlelight. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.