Let’s face it. The only good roach is a dead roach.
• Cockroach (Order: Orthoptera, Families Blattellidae & Blattodae). Cockroaches are some of the most common pests found in and around your home. They exist worldwide and are among the oldest group of insects known with fossils dating back about 200 million years. They are omnivorous and eat anything from human food to dog food, toothpaste, and scraps on dirty dishes, soap, envelope glue, vegetable matter, and trash that they find primarily through smell. Cockroaches can produce odorous excretions that may affect the flavor of food. They can mechanically contaminate food or utensils because they feed on filth and disease organisms that they carry into your kitchens, bedrooms and pantries. Cockroach droppings and cast skins may cause some people to exhibit allergic responses. They can be carried into homes in boxes, grocery sacks, food packages and beverage cartons. They travel through sewers, utility lines and loose fitting doors and windows.
• German Cockroach ( Blatella Germanica)
The German cockroach is now the most frequently found cockroach in Nevada homes, apartments, hospitals, restaurants and hotels. This pest is usually found in the kitchen and other food areas. They have the highest reproductive potential with the shortest life cycle and the most number of eggs laid. The adults are pale brown to tan and are slightly smaller than one half inch long with wings distinguished by two dark stripes that run lengthwise along the pronotum, behind the head. Female German cockroaches carry their egg capsules or ootheca, protruding from their abdomen and drop them one or two days before hatching. Females produce about four to eight egg capsules in their lifetime with each capsule containing 30 to 40 eggs which hatch in about 28 days at room temperature.
• Oriental Cockroach (Blatta Orientalis)
This cockroach is often called the “water bug” as it is often found in moist and dark places like storm drains, water meter boxes, around plumbing fixtures and sewers. They are dark reddish brown or black in color with adults about 30 mm long, having short wings and not being able to fly. Adult females produce an average of eight egg capsules that contain about 16 eggs. The Oriental cockroach may be the most disliked as it travels in sewers and lives on filth, carrying this into homes.
• American Cockroach ( Periplaneta Americana)
In Las Vegas, this is the largest domestic cockroach, with the adults about one and one half inches long, reddish brown in color with a pale brown or yellowish band around the forward portion of their thorax or pronotum. They may live an average of 630 days and are found in sewer systems and can enter your house or apartment via plumbing systems and drains.
