Fair warning: this video isn't for the squeamish. It's of a female Madagascar hissing cockroach giving upside-down birth to a prodigious mass of live, wriggling cockroach young... and it is every bit as incredible, interesting, and gross as you'd imagine.

I was amazed by the way the young appear to exit the adult roach as a single, globby aggregate, only to seemingly transform — first into a blob comprising dozens of articulated sections, and shortly thereafter into individual creatures that look an awful lot like miniaturized, milk-white versions of their mom.

Provided you weren't put off by the first video, check out this second clip, wherein the momma-roach squirts out what is sometimes referred to as "cockroach milk" — a secretion that, like breast milk, is rich in baby-nourishing proteins, fat and carbs.

[Spotted on boingboing]
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