and bases of the legs and takes some of its host's food as well as consuming particulates along the host's body. 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. Recent studies have shown that these mites also may have beneficial qualities for the cockroaches, in that they clean the surfaces of the cockroaches of pathogenic mold spores, which in turn increases the life expectancy of the cockroaches. Popular culture The Madagascar hissing cockroach has been known to be featured in Hollywood movies, prominently in Bug (1975) as cockroaches who could set fires by rubbing their legs together and, in Damnation Alley (1977), as post-nuclear-war mutant armor-plated "killer" cockroaches. In Starship Troopers, a movie about a war against an enemy called "The Bugs", a teacher is shown encouraging her students to step on this species as part of a TV propaganda broadcast. 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”. A Madagascar hissing cockroach was used by artist Garnet Hertz as the driver of a mobile robotic artwork. 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. While normally she would be eliminated, as the show was for charity, it was decided that if she ate 3 worms she would advance to the final stunt regardless. In addition, Rogan would eat a cockroach as part of the bet. The species also made an appearance in the movie Men in Black in 1997. This was later parodied in the comedy Team America: World Police (2004), where one emerges from Kim Jong-il'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 FrightFest. Furthermore, if a