"My first experience with the fallout franchise was fallout shelter so when I started New Vegas I expected there to be way more radroaches than there were."
The once-humble cockroach has, in the Earth of the Black Isles, become a fearsome opportunistic predator. Where once the roach feared man as a giant, now, they hunt in packs - and their largest members dwarf not only their dimunitive ancestors, but the human beings that once terrorized them. Below the cut: The Radroach.
CAPITOLINE AND MOJAVE RADROACHES
FIGURE 1: The Capitoline Radroach, first described by Pagliarulo et al, 2008. [Adamowicz, circa 2005-2006.] Observe the enlarged antenna, spined abdomen, and rugged carapace. These features were exaggerated by the respected Wasteland anatomist, Adam Adamowicz.
The Capitoline Radroach is among the smaller of the Wasteland's mutated insects, but it is nonetheless several hundred times larger than its purported ancestor, the Periplaneta americana - or the common American cockroach. The supposition of Wasteland 'scientists' - that the Radroach is merely a P. americana grown to large size - is untenable, as the radroach exhibits several distinctive characteristics fit for speciation.
The Capitoline Radroach - beyond mere size - boasts a secondary pronotum (the thick shell protecting its thorax and head), and its primary pronotum is strongly ridged and lacks the distinctive patterning of P. americana. The prominent spines of the metalegs is nearly absent - though they are present in the closely related New England or Appalachian Radroach - and the head is considerably enlarged and elongated, as are the epiprocts. These are considerable morphological differences - ones that move beyond minor mutation, and into the emergence of a new species, if not an entirely novel genus.
To that end, we nominate the Capitoline Radroach as the type species of that novel genus - one prevalent in the East Coast with known populations in the Mojave and New California, but distinct from the two other key genera of radroach we will also examine - tentatively identified as the Roboroplaneta. The Roboroplaneta are marked by their size, prominent ridged pronotums, and enlarged epiprocts, with the spining of the legs and the arrangement of mouthparts indicating speciation. Curiously, the Capitoline Radroach is near identical to the Mojave Radroach, though the Mojave Radroach is more closely associated with toxic sites.
The Capitoline Radroach is duly nominated as:
Roboroplaneta|radiomutandis columbiana
Urboroach detritovorae omnivora
Creepuscrawlus roachus mediocra
These latter niche and mythotaxa are shared across the Roboroplaneta genus, as all specimens exhibit the same ecological and cultural niches.
(GREATER) APPALACHIAN RADROACH
FIGURE 1: An artist's impression of an Appalachian Radroach, first described by Pagliarulo et al, 2015, in full attack. Observe the prominent spines, thickened wing membranes, and prominent shield-like pronotum. [Art by Loic Canavaggia for the MTG Fallout cards.]
Among the numerous species common to both New England and the Virginias, the Appalachian Radroach - so named for the hypothesis that these shared species descended on the lowlands from the Appalachian Uplands, stretching from Canada to Alabama, rather than seperately mutating into identical forms despite widely disparate environmental conditions - is closely related to the Capitoline Radroach. It is slightly larger as a whole, with a considerably greater variation in size that may suggest subspeciation. The distinguishing characteristics of the Appalachian Radroach lie in their thickened wing membranes, more deeply ridged pronota, and prominent leg spines used for both burrowing and attacking prey, with eleven abdominal segments. They are usually, though not universally, paler in colour than the Capitoline species.
We nominate them as Roboroplaneta|radiomutandis dorsoscutum.
NEW CALIFORNIAN RADROACH
A relatively recent arrival, the New Californian Radroach has nonetheless swiftly established itself in the ruins of the West Coast. This species appears to be a fairly typical example of Roboroplaneta columbiana, though it may - if local scientists are reliable - be differentiated by their 'extended antennae', an 'enlarged thorax', and 'incisors' (Wilzig, 2296) - by which we interpret this local scientist to mean the adaptation of the entire mandible towards an incisor-like function.
Assuming these characteristics are not merely the product of local ignorance of the Appalachian Radroach, we nominate the New Californian Radroach as subspecies californicatia of R. columbiana.
TEXAN RADROACH
FIGURE 2: A juvenile Texas Radroach, first described by Pasetto et al, 2004, approaching carrion. Observe the highly unorthodox body plan of the 'roach' (also known as the 'Texas Radbug'), a mercifully apocryphal creature.
The Texas Radroach, the Pedant feels confident in declaring openly, is not a roach at all. Observing this creature's alleged appearance - we note also, with considerable relief, that it is believed to be a form of cryptid even by the inhabitants of its reality, a non-extant and non-canonical creature - we note the presence of an elongated tail; the lack of wings; the presence of mammalian dentition; the hammerhead-eyed arrangement, and the lack of a pronotum.
The Texas Radroach, whatever it may have been - if indeed it ever existed - is no Roach, nor a bug. We conclude that it was the product of an era of experimentation best left unexamined, though in our obsessive quest for completeness, we nominate it as Incertae sedis noncanonicus whatthefuckisthatus, with a deferred mythotaxa awaiting the study of other horrific quasi-insects (e.g. the Tyranid organism.)
MIDWESTERN GIANT SPITTING COCKROACH
FIGURE 3: The gargantuan Midwestern Giant Spitting Cockroach, first described by Orman et al, 2001. Observe the adaptation of the antennae into a forked, feathered sensory appendage, the maxillary palps into prominent piercing claws, and the complete atrophy of the wings.
The distinguishing characteristics of the Midwestern Giant Spitting Cockroach are straightforward. They are wingless, broad, with broad, smooth thoracic plates and a hood-like pronota. They possess striking claws adapted from their palps, forked antennae, no sharp leg spines, and the ability to spit digestive fluids at considerable range. Juvenile specimens are rarely larger than a common mouse, but grown adults range in size from roughly that of a man to that of a small car, with those in New Mexico - described in the apocryphal Van Buren texts - consistently reaching this larger size.
Unlike the Roboroplaneta, the Midwestern Giant Spitting Cockroach derives from the Cryptocercus genus - specifically, we believe its ancestry to lie with C. clevelandii, native to the Midwest. These large brown-hooded roaches bear a striking morphological similarity to the Midwestern Giant, but our suggestion of membership among the Cryptocercus (debated among splitters and inclusivists within the Temple - for the time being, the inclusivists have won out) derives not merely from this marked resemblance, but from the tendency of the Midwestern Giant to spit. The close relationship of the Cryptocercus to the termites presents an obvious route for the evolution of a nasus structure akin to that of certain temites, concealed within the pronotum, which has enabled the Midwestern Giant to spit in maturity and to ooze digestive enzymes poisonous to most other athropods and to mammals over the mandibles as juveniles.
We nominate the Midwestern Giant as:
Cryptocercus|radiomutandis gargantua
Gargantoinsecta anthropophagae tankus
Creepuscrawlus roachus sweetusieususbiggus
FIGURE 4: The phylogenetic tree of the Wasteland Roaches, excluding the apocryphal Texas Radroach.
(What's next? Who knows. If the current mood continues, I think I might dig into the plants a little!)
