About

Scientific Name of the Largest Cockroach refers to a series of memes encouraging or discouraging viewers from looking up the scientific name of the largest cockroach species, which is Megaloblatta Longipennis, the joke being that the name ends in "longipennis" which can be pronounced as "long penis." The name became the subject of memes and a Don't Google trend as early as 2018 on Tumblr and spread over the following years.

Origin

On May 3rd, 2018, Tumblr^[1] user glutko posted a screenshot of a block of text reading, "The world's largest winged cockroach is Megaloblatta Longipennis," writing, "The largest cockroach ever is named Megalovania LongPenis," garnering over 74,200 notes in five years (shown below). This is the earliest known meme referencing the scientific name for the largest-winged cockroach.

Spread

The name of the cockroach became the further subject of memes over the following years as it continued to spread online. For example, on May 6th, 2020, an image of the roach along with its name was posted to /r/memes,^[2] garnering over 100 upvotes in three years.

On August 19th, 2023, a 9GAG^[3] user posted a Peter I Told You meme referencing the cockroach, garnering over 320 upvotes in two days (shown below). The meme was reposted by X^[4] user @mischiefanimals on August 21st, garnering over 49,300 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References