As the name says, this is said
to be the most common cockroach in the U.K. but there are differences
of opinion about this, suffice to say there are plenty of these
about and as I said earlier, they are found in areas of high
temperature such as kitchens, laundry's and hospitals etc.
As you can see from the picture below the male has wings, though
he can't fly, and the female has only vestigial wings stubs,
the picture above is a female. These are wings which have devolved
over the millennia as the female never flies, so identification
of the sexes in this species is quite easy, if you're into
that sort of thing. A few facts below will bring home the need
for control of this species of insect:-
This species is dark brown to black in color. Females are 1
to 1-1/2 inches long and have only rudimentary wings reduced
to small lobes. Males are a little shorter than females and
have fully developed wings which don't extend to the end of
the abdomen. A female will carry her ootheca for about 30 hours
before she drops or attaches it to a protective surface near
a food supply. The average female will produce 8 capsules,
each having 16 eggs which hatch in about 44 days.
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