Cockroaches may get a lot of bad press, but you can't call them deadbeat dads.

In species that feed on wood, the parents use the material to build nests and find food for their larvae. Such parental care is "pretty unusual" in insects, Forbes said.

Cockroach fathers will even eat bird droppings to obtain nitrogen, a necessary part of their diet, and carry it back to their young (above, German cockroach babies emerge from an egg).

Wood-feeding cockroaches are also tidy parents, sweeping nurseries clean of dead cockroaches and fungus to shield their families from infection.