You can name a cockroach after your ex for Valentine's Day. Here's how.
Valentine's Day is coming up, but for some people, the holiday does not elicit warm and fuzzy feelings of love – instead, they spend the day thinking about their ex. To help these people mark the holiday, the San Antonio Zoo allows people to name cockroaches after their exes.
The zoo's annual Valentine's Day tradition helps raise funds to support the zoo's "vision of securing a future for wildlife in Texas and around the world." For a donation of $5–25, you can name a cockroach after your ex-partner and receive a digital Valentine's Day card – your ex will also receive a digital card informing them that a roach has been named after them.
San Antonio Zoo is also allowing donors to symbolically name a rodent or veggie after their former partner.
They're not the only ones giving Valentine's Day haters an outlet to express their feelings toward their ex. The Bronx Zoo also has a "name a roach" program, in which you can also send your ex a tote bag or tumbler with a cockroach image – informing them they have one named after them.
At the El Paso Zoo, the cockroaches you name after your exes will be fed to animals at the zoo, like iguanas, skinks and meerkats. The Houston Museum of Natural Science also allows you to name roaches after exes and the Florida Aquarium has downloadable roach-themed Valentine's Day cards.
Lehigh Valley Zoo in Pennsylvania is instead offering crickets. From now until Feb. 14, a $5 donation will allow you to name a feeder cricket and the zoo will post weekly videos showing the crickets being fed to animals. They'll also share some interesting animal facts during the feedings. "Our animals get a tasty and enriching meal, and you get some animal knowledge and the ability to start Valentine's Day with a clean slate," the zoo says.
The Toronto Zoo allows you to adopt a roach named after your ex – but if you aren't cynical about the holiday, you can also adopt a penguin couple for a loved one to show them you care this Valentine's Day.
If bugs aren't your thing, Maui Humane Society is offering the opportunity to name an unpleasant object after your ex – a litter box. Donors can choose to put their ex's name on a litter box for $10 or buy an entire box for $100. Donations must be made by Feb. 14 and then, "our cats will take care of the rest," the humane society says.
South Carolina's Berkeley Animal Center is also selling the opportunity to write your ex's name on a litter box.
In Wales, you can enter to win a chance to put your ex's name on a garbage bin. Business Waste, a commercial waste management company that collects trash and also sells bins, allows submissions of names until Valentine's day, when they will draw names at random and print some on garbage bins. It's free to enter, but not every name will be chosen.
For years, many zoos, wildlife centers and businesses have found creative ways to celebrate – or get revenge on – exes. In 2019, Wildlife Sydney in Australia allowed donors to name a snake after an ex for just $1 – the proceeds went to the Wild Life Conservation Fund.
Also that year, Wildlife Images Rehabilitation and Education Center sold salmon that could be named after exes before they were fed to bears.
In 2021, Richmond Wildlife Center allowed people to name a mealworm, beetle, superworm or waxworm "after your worm of an ex" for just $2. The bugs were then fed to an animal in their care. A $5 donation allowed you to name a hornworm or nightcrawler after a "truly terrible ex," the center said.
