BRONX, NEW YORK – Jan. 18, 2018 – Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and there is only one gift that will last forever. The Bronx Zoo has brought back the Name-a-Roach program – a light-hearted way to make sure your loved one knows your feelings will last a lifetime.

The zoo is again offering the opportunity to name its giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches for Valentine’s Day 2018. Each gift comes with a colorful certificate emailed to your loved one announcing that a cockroach has been named in his or her honor.

For a $15 donation, your loved one, or unloved one, will receive the certificate to cherish for years to come, featuring the name chosen for your Valentine’s Day roach. To make an extra impression, send “the works” for a $75 donation which includes a printed certificate, the all new “Roach Brooch” pin, crazy roach sox, and a box of delicious artisan chocolates. Various combinations of the roachy merchandise are also available for $50. All orders can be placed at www.BronxZoo.com/Roach.

“The Bronx Zoo’s Name-A-Roach promotion is a light-hearted, fun way to reach out to someone on Valentine’s Day to let them know that you are thinking about them,” said John F. Calvelli, WCS Executive Vice President of Public Affairs. “Roses wither, chocolates melt but roaches are forever. Nothing lasts longer than a roach, so it could be sent as a symbolic gesture about how long your love will last or exactly the opposite.  Some might say that love is like a roach – elusive, resilient, and sometimes very scary.”

The original Name-a-Roach launched in 2011, and thousands of hopeless romantics from around the world have named Madagascar hissing cockroaches at WCS’s Bronx Zoo after their favorite loved one, “ex,” or mother-in-law. Previous names chosen have been inspired by politics, music, movies, and more. The possibilities are limitless.

The name-a-roach program is all in good fun and will help WCS further its mission to save wildlife and wild places in New York and around the world.

The zoo has plenty of roaches to name with thousands of the super-sized bugs on exhibit in Madagascar!—an award-winning habitat for lemurs, crocodiles, and many other species from the African island nation.

Madagascar hissing cockroaches are the world’s largest roach species reaching nearly four-inches long.  The namesake hissing noise is emitted as a defense mechanism.  Like nearly every roach species, Madagascar hissing cockroaches are not considered pests and rarely enter homes.

BROADCAST MEDIA NOTE: Requests for samples certificates for on-air use can be sent to mpulsinelli@wcs.org.