Water bugs7/31/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() The most important aspect of cockroach damage derives from their habit of feeding and harboring in damp and unsanitary places such as sewers, garbage disposals, kitchens, bathrooms, and indoor storage areas. If water is available, they can live for a month without food without water they die within two weeks. They seem especially fond of garbage and the contents of discarded tin cans. Oriental cockroaches feed on all kinds of filth, rubbish, and other decaying organic matter. By late summer and early fall, this number has become quite low, owing to natural mortality and the hatching of nymphs. The peak number of adults usually appears in late spring or early summer. Unlike the other house-infesting species, the Oriental cockroach generally has a seasonal developmental cycle. The life span of an adult female is 5 to 26 weeks with approximately 200 offspring. Nymphs molt from seven to ten times nymphal stages usually take 24 to 130 weeks to complete. The female does not glue the egg capsule to the surface.įemales produce an average of eight capsules, each containing 16 eggs that hatch in about 60 days under room temperature conditions. Eggs are laid in capsules, which the female carries for about 30 hours and then drops onto a protected surface near a food supply. The Oriental cockroach has three developmental stages: egg, nymph, and adult. Image of Oriental cockroach adults, nymphs, and eggs. They may enter the home in food packages and laundry, or merely come in under the door or through air ducts, garbage chutes, or ventilators.įigure 1. Oriental cockroaches are generally found outdoors during warm weather, but in periods of drought there may be considerable movement into structures, apparently in search of higher humidity. At times large numbers occur in one great mass around leaks in the basement or crawl space areas of homes. They are seldom found on walls, in high cupboards, or in the upper floors of buildings. ![]() Both nymphs and adults are sluggish and are usually situated at or below ground level indoors. They can be found outdoors in abandoned cisterns and water valve pits in yards beneath leaves in bark mulch around shrubs, flowers, and foundations in dumps, stone walls, and crawl spaces and in garbage and trash dumps and trash chutes. Indoors, Oriental cockroaches prefer dark, moist areas such as under porches, sewers, drains, crawl spaces, dark, damp basements, and floor drains. Nymphs and adults have similar habits and are found with decaying organic matter indoors and out. Males have wings that cover only about three-quarters of their abdomen. Females have small, functionless, rudimentary wing pads and broader, heavier bodies. Both male and female adults are very dark brown, nearly black their bodies usually have a somewhat greasy sheen. This species, which is less wary and more sluggish than the others, of concern because it often travels through sewer pipes and lives on filth.Īdult Oriental cockroaches are about one inch in length (Figure 1). Oriental cockroaches are often called water bugs because of their preference for dark, damp, and cool areas such as those under sinks and washing machines, and in damp basements. A fifth species, the Pennsylvania wood cockroach is an occasional nuisance pest in some locations. These are the German, brown-banded, Oriental, and American cockroaches. Only four species are common pests in Pennsylvania structures. About 3,500 species of cockroaches exist worldwide, with 55 species found in the United States. Because cockroaches are so adaptable, they have successfully adjusted to living with humans. They are considered one of the most successful groups of animals. Fossil evidence indicates that cockroaches have been on earth for over 300 million years. ![]() Cockroaches are among the most common of insects. ![]()
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