Preliminary studies on Blattella germanica as bioindicator for the recovery of unexploded anti-man landmines

Antipersonnel mines are indiscriminate and inhumane weapons and have disastrous long-term consequences. Currently, there are more than 100-million landmines located in 70 countries around the world. Since 1975, landmines have killed or maimed more than one million people, in the majority are children. Probing the ground with a stick or bayonet is the slow and dangerous conventional detection technique. The final goal of our project is to set up a cybernetic insect-based system for the detection olfactive stimuli coming from landmines through an appetitive associative learning. We selected Blattella germanica for its omnivorous and highly adaptable habits. In Our experiments, we used a Y shaped training arena and a Y shaped olfactometer. Our preliminary results clearly indicate that males are able to discriminate different odors and they can memorize the positive association of odors and food, making possible the idea of the use of cockroaches as biosensor for landmine detection.