Brown Banded Cockroach

Supella Longipalpa

Appearance The brown-banded cockroach is tan to light brown in colour and about 10 to 14mm long. They have two light-coloured bands across the wings and abdomen that may be partly obscured by the wings. The male has wings that cover the abdomen, while the female has slightly shorter wings. The male is more slender than the female. Lifecycle Eggs are laid in capsules, which the female carries for about 30 hours before she places them in a protected and hidden area such as in or under furniture. During her adult life a female produces between 10 and 20 egg capsules, each containing between 14 and 16 eggs.

The length of the egg stage varies from 37 to 103 days, depending on temperature. The nymphal stage ranges from 8 to 31 weeks. A female adult has a life span of 13 to 45 weeks.

Diet

The brown-banded cockroach will eat a wide variety of organic items, but prefers to eat starchy foods, such as wallpaper paste and book bindings.

Habitat

They tend to prefer warmer, drier, and higher locations than any other type of cockroach. It is common to find them hiding nearer the ceiling than the floor and away from water sources such as in a kitchen or bathroom.

Disease

Cockroaches are known to spread at least 33 kinds of bacteria, six kinds of parasitic worms, and at least seven other kinds of human pathogens. The diseases that cockroaches spread cause such things as Salmonella food poisoning, diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid, TB and Polio. They also cause allergic reactions and are a major contributor to respiratory asthma in humans.

Germs accumulate on their legs and bodies as they crawl through decaying matter or sewage. Food preparation and storage areas can then become contaminated by the cockroaches themselves or their faeces. While feeding, cockroaches often regurgitate digestive fluid that contains organisms ingested in a previous meal.

Bacteria associated with cockroaches include:

Clostridium perfringens
Enterobacter aerogenes
Escherichia coli
Klebsiella pneumoniae
Mycobacterium leprae
Proteus morgani
Proteus mirabilis
Proteus rettgeri
Proteus vulgaris
Salmonella bareilly
Salmonella bovis-morbificans
Salmonella bredeny
SalmSalmonella oranienburg
Salmonella panama
Salmonella paratyphi-B
Salmonella typhi
Salmonella typhimurium
Serratia marcescens
Shigella dysenteriae
Staphylococcus aureus
Streptococcus faecalis
Streptococcus pyogenes
Vibrio spp.
Yersinia pestisonella newport