Talk:German cockroach

Needs more info
Article should be much longer. There's a lot of pop culture stuff on Wikipedia that seems like several thousands of words. This article should have more detailed information about cockroaches.

Untitled
''It is tan to light brown, and has two dark parallel streaks running from the head to the base of the wings. Although it does not have wings, it is very skilled at flight and is able to sustain flight.'' Could someone fix that? Do they have wings or don't they? Also the second sentence seems cut off. I'd fix it but I honestly don't know if German cockroaches have wings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.79.252.71 (talk • contribs)
 * yea, it certainly looked odd. They do got 2 pairs of wings. GSPbeetle complains Vandalisms  05:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Any chance of adding some roach abatement info? Perhaps something about boric acid, it breaks down the chitin of their shells. I'd do it, but I find its a bit presumptuous to add or remove something from someone else's article. Davepetr 04:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * They can be dark brown too, and almost black. Should I add that to the article? Most juveniles are practically black, some females are dark brown. Sagittarian Milky Way 05:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Can I/someone add the word ootheca & it's plural alongside "egg case" because that's what they're called. Thanks. This also goes for other mentions of egg cases for other cockroaches. DaveDodgy (talk) 15:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

They are the most prevalent cockroach in the UK but this not mentioned David Thrale (talk) 22:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

They are one of the most destructive pests in Melbourne, Australia, mostly in restaurants and cafes. Not un common for the Health Dep. or Pest Controller to close several down due to German Cockroaches. Most other breeds of cockroaches are of no concern. Benny - Pest Control Manager —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.108.43.242 (talk) 05:31, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

German?
What's German about the German cockroach? how do i get rid of them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.91.76.151 (talk) 23:42, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * "German" because it was named so (in Latin, as Blattella germanica) by Linnaeus (a Swede) who promoted the used of scientific binomial nomenclature in the 18th century and coined the Latin names for many familiar organisms, including this one. Certainly it was then and is now found in Germany (and the rest of Europe). Linneus or colleagues may have (wrongly) thought it originated from Germany, or it may already have been the commonly used name in Europe.
 * In the UK it's also known as the "Steamer beetle" (as I was told by a friend who worked for Rentokil) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.209.145 (talk) 21:51, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Do they fly?
--MathFacts (talk) 09:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This article says they don't: http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/german-cockroaches

AThousandYoung (talk) 02:01, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I saw how they fly. In my kitchen before. We need more accurate information. I'm talking about Oriental cockroach. 176.65.33.237 (talk)

Origin of the word "German cockroach"
What's the origin. I can understand croton bug due to it's relation with the Croton river, but what's so German about it? Were there a large number in Germany? Not one of the foreign language articles, even the German one, explain the origin. --Kanzler31 (talk) 21:49, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Predators
In Los Angeles the Daddy Longlegs spiders prey on them. AThousandYoung (talk) 02:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Light emission?
Today I turned on the tub faucet to force the water heater to fire up, but a few minutes later I had to turn it off to do something else. I went back to turn it on again and found a German cockroach trying to struggle out of the tub, which had likely crept out of the sink hole. It looked somewhat battered (the wing plates seemed more separated from the abdomen than usual and the tip of the abdomen seemed slightly bent) and it dragged its wet abdomen somewhat, and was climbing the tub slowly because a thin and dried film of soap on the surface let it get decent footholds. But the really strange thing I noticed is that when it attempted to climb, I saw the tub surface get vaguely brighter as it made its efforts (but not continuously), below the roach and especially under the abdomen! I have not seen anything like this on German cockroaches in other circumstances. After seeing this I tried to find some info and only noticed that there's a species of tropical cockroach, the luchihormetica luckae, that emits greenish light to imitate a poisonous beetle. But this seemed whitish and only noticeable on the more reflective surface of the tub rather than the body of the roach, and it was a common German cockroach... Am I hallucinating, was this an alien in cockroach shape, or has this subtle light emission in roaches been registered by anyone? I've read German cockroaches can emit an odor when annoyed, so maybe the substance they emit then can glow under certain chemical circumstances? I'm really intrigued... Who is like God? (talk) 07:32, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Inquiline
Made a minor edit to wiki-link the unfamiliar word "inquilines" to the article that explains what these are: an inquiline (from Latin inquilinus, "lodger" or "tenant"). Suggest ("lodger" or "tenant") also be added.—Pawyilee (talk) 10:20, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Quite right. Thanks. I had in fact intended to link it, but seemed to have tripped up. Well, it is linked now. :) I'll check for other examples where such links might be appropriate. JonRichfield (talk) 11:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

American flyers
Adding American cockroaches to the very end of the article without any previous mention has brought to attention confusion about the issue of which of the American and oriental variates have a ticket to fly. I happened to have been in St. Pete when it was snowed under by what were said to be southeast Asian flying roaches that simply didn't know how to behave themselves. That was for only that one season. Their children were constitutionally both Floridian and American by birth, with the constitutional guarantee of being allowed to settle in any other of the united states where they could find work, without having to pass a flying test. Since the Russian and German roaches are neither of Russian nor German origin and all seem to be descended from southeast Asians, could we not merge the articles, and settle the issue of flying by having them tested? —Pawyilee (talk) 06:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I follow. I would happily do without the American roaches in this article, but do not follow what you suggest merging and why. I suppose we could remove overlap from this article and put it into Cockroach, but merging the articles on separate species isn't really on. JonRichfield (talk) 16:34, 18 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Pretty sure this was a joke. :-) The rationale for including the table, as a point of comparison, could stand to be more clearly stated. Though honestly, I think it's more detail than is needed; they could be compared to other common species of cockroaches in a less data-heavy sentence. The most interesting point of comparison for a casual reader, I'd think, would be that the German cockroach is typically half the size or smaller than the most common worldwide species of tropical/sub-tropical cockroaches. Another point of comparison not really given in the graph is the fact that the other two are more tropical/subtropical, while the German cockroach is adapted to living indoors in much colder climates. Another key difference from that table is that the American cockroach can fly, though that could be said about cockroaches in general, for example "while some cockroaches are capable of sustained flight, the German cockroach ..." --Agyle (talk) 20:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

suggestion: incorporate new paper on history of global spread
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2401185121 [Solving the 250-year-old mystery of the origin and global spread of the German cockroach, Blattella germanica]

this new paper seems well worth a citation on the article Nagging Prawn (talk) 02:51, 21 May 2024 (UTC)