Brown cockroach

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Brown cockroach
Periplaneta brunnea.jpg
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Blattodea
Family: Blattidae
Genus: Periplaneta
Species:
P. brunnea
Binomial name
Periplaneta brunnea
Synonyms
  • Periplaneta concolor Walker, 1868
  • Periplaneta patens Walker, 1868
  • Periplaneta truncata Krauss, 1892
  • Periplaneta ignota Shaw, 1925

The brown cockroach (Periplaneta brunnea) is a species of cockroach in the family Blattidae. It is probably originally native to Africa, but today it has a circumtropical distribution, having been widely introduced.[1] In cooler climates it can only survive indoors,[2] and it is considered a household pest.[1]

This cockroach is similar in appearance to the American cockroach (P. americana), but darker in color and with thicker, wider, triangular cerci. It is a reddish-brown color and has fully developed wings.[2] It reaches up to 4 centimeters in length.[1]

It produces an ootheca about 1.2 to 1.6 centimeters long containing about 24 eggs on average.[3]

It is an omnivore.[2]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Periplaneta brunnea, Brown Cockroach. Cook Islands Biodiversity Database. The Cook Islands Natural Heritage Trust. 2007.
  2. ^ a b c Periplaneta brunnea (Burmeister, 1838). Archived November 15, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Orthopteroids of the British Isles Recording Scheme.
  3. ^ Periplaneta brunnea Burmeister, 1838. PaDIL.

External links[]

  • Black and white photographs of top view of P. brunnea male and female specimens, from Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections.
  • Drawings of body parts of male P. brunnea; plate VII, figures 12-16 show detail of the pronotum, end of abdomen with cerci, genital process, subgenital plate, and supra-anal plate with cerci. From a 1917 article[1] by Morgan Hebard, with a key to the figures on page 280.


  1. ^ Hebard, Morgan (1917). "The Blattidae of North America north of the Mexican boundary". Memoirs of the American Entomological Society. 2: 1–284.
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