A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it staves to death Cockroaches are notorious for their obstinacy, and are frequently named as the most likely stickers of a atomic war. Some even right that they can live without their heads. It turns out that these lounger murderers are right. Headless roaches are talented of living for weeks. To comprehend why cockroaches and numerous other insects can survive beheading, it helps to understand why people cannot, explains physiologist and biochemist/ decapitation in people results in blood loss and a drop in blood pressure hindering transport of oxygen and diet to vital tissues. You’d nosebleed to death Kunkel But cockroaches do not have blood heaviness the way people do. They don’t have a huge net of blood pots like that of humans, or tiny tubes that you need a lot of pressure to flow blood finished, Kunkel says. They have an open cardiac system, which there’s much fewer pressure in.