Oriental Cockroach

• It is one of the few cockroaches that can survive outdoor winter temperatures near freezing.
• It eats rotting organic matter, rubbish and practically any waste it can find.
• It lives in damp cellars, sewers, pipes and cold dark underground spaces the world over.
• It is the cockroach of basements and sewers, and it is distinguished from the American and German cockroaches by being darker, almost black, and by its preference for cool, damp places.
• It practically does not fly: the male has short wings that do not cover his abdomen, and the female's are reduced to stumps. Neither of the two uses them to fly.
• It climbs smooth surfaces poorly, unlike the German cockroach, which is why it tends to stay at floor level and in drains.
• It moves slowly and is the slowest of the common household cockroaches, which makes it easier to detect and to control.
• Its smell is characteristic and detectable: it secretes compounds with an intense rancid odour that gives away an infestation before the insects are ever seen.
• Its life cycle is slow compared with the German cockroach's: a year or more from egg to adult, which makes its populations grow more slowly.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Damp cellars, sewers, pipes and cold dark underground spaces the world over

Birth weight

A tiny nymph on hatching from the egg

Size at birth

A bright reddish nymph on hatching, darkening with each moult

Sexual maturity

After 6 months to a year of nymphal development (7-10 moults)

Gestation / incubation

42-81 days of ootheca incubation (~60 days usually given)

Litter / clutch size

~16 eggs per ootheca, with up to 8 oothecae produced by a female in her lifetime

Sources consulted: PubMed (reproductive developmental biology study); Animal Diversity Web; Russell IPM; Pesky Little Critters; Active Pest Control; Oklahoma State University Extension; University of Florida Entomology