The "hissing" sound (expelling air through their bodies) is their primary defense, to frighten potential predators, as they cannot fly and are easily captured.

As in some other wood-inhabiting roaches, the parents and offspring will commonly remain in close physical contact for extended periods of time.

Compared to crickets, this exact mode of sound production is atypical, as most insects that make noises do so by rubbing together various body parts ("stridulation"), such as the hind legs.

As these mites do not harm the cockroaches they live upon, they are commensals, not parasites, unless they build up to abnormal levels and start starving their host.

In 1984, a guest named Adam Zweig appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, demonstrating his pet Madagascar cockroach "climbing the tightrope over the fires of hell and the pit of doom".

[6] They were frequently used in the reality television series Fear Factor, where in one episode of the 2002 series, featuring celebrities competing for charity, the host, Joe Rogan, ate one as part of a wager with contestant Alison Sweeney of Days of Our Lives after she had what Rogan has since described as "the greatest freak-out in Fear Factor history" after panicking during a stunt.

This was later parodied in the comedy Team America: World Police (2004), where a cockroach emerges from a Kim Jong-il puppet's body after his death, enters a tiny spaceship, and flies away.

In September 2006, amusement park Six Flags Great America announced that it would be granting unlimited line-jumping privileges (for all rides) to anyone who could eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach, as part of a Halloween-themed promotion for their annual FrightFest.

Since 2011[8] the Bronx Zoo has held a roach-naming and gifting program themed for Valentine's Day[9] allowing their Madagascar hissing cockroaches to be named by benefactors.

In fact, during outreach programs, the University of Florida's Department of Entomology and Nematology, which has such a permit, allows only males to be taken out of the laboratory.