Brown cockroach

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]

Brown cockroach
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Blattodea
Family:	Blattidae
Genus:	Periplaneta
Species:	P. brunnea
Binomial name
Periplaneta brunnea Burmeister, 1838
Synonyms
Periplaneta concolor Walker, 1868 Periplaneta patens Walker, 1868 Periplaneta truncata Krauss, 1892 Periplaneta ignota Shaw, 1925

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]

Brown Cockroach usually produces longer ootheca compared to American Cockroach. One ootheca could contain around 28 eggs on average. They are smaller in size and darker in colour and often times being mistaken with American Cockroach. American Cockroach on the other hand are larger and usually reddish-brown in colour. This is because both of the two different species comes from the same genus hence there's a little similarities. Brown Cockroach do gives off unpleasant smell when threatened or touched. Males are usually smaller than their females counterparts. They are social insects. They like to be in large groups resting in warm, moist, dark areas. They prefer indoor areas and often times known as the pests that linger around our homes. However, not for American Cockroaches. American Cockroaches prefer to live in outdoor areas like the sewers on the streets and only comes into our homes when there's changes in the weather climate or when food is limited. Hence, that's the reason why American Cockroach is always well known to be mistaken as Brown Cockroach as people often sees them on the streets and when back to their homes they thought it's the same species. However, both species of the same genus can be found in your homes too.

References

1. Periplaneta brunnea, Brown Cockroach. Cook Islands Biodiversity Database. The Cook Islands Natural Heritage Trust. 2007.
2. 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.