The brown cockroach (''Periplaneta brunnea'') is a species of

cockroach Cockroaches (or roaches) are a paraphyletic group of insects belonging to Blattodea, containing all members of the group except termites. About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are well-known as ...

in the family

Blattidae Blattidae is a cockroach family in the order Blattodea containing several of the most common household cockroaches. Some notable species include: * ''Blatta orientalis'': Oriental cockroach, * Common shining cockroach: (''Drymaplaneta commun ...

. It is probably originally native to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, but today it has a circumtropical distribution, having been widely introduced.''Periplaneta brunnea'', Brown Cockroach.
Cook Islands Biodiversity Database. The Cook Islands Natural Heritage Trust. 2007. In cooler climates it can only survive indoors,''Periplaneta brunnea'' (Burmeister, 1838).
Orthopteroids of the British Isles Recording Scheme. and it is considered a household pest. This cockroach is similar in appearance to the

American cockroach The american cockroach (''Periplaneta americana'') is the largest species of common cockroach, and often considered a pest. In certain regions of the U.S. it is colloquially known as the waterbug, though it is not a true waterbug since it is not ...

(''P. americana''), but darker in color and with thicker, wider, triangular cerci. It is a reddish-brown color and has fully developed wings. It reaches up to 4 centimeters in length. It produces an

ootheca An ootheca (pl. ''oothecae'' ) is a type of egg mass made by any member of a variety of species including mollusks (such as ''Turbinella laevigata''), mantises, and cockroaches. The word is a Latinized combination of ''oo-'', meaning "egg", f ...

about 1.2 to 1.6 centimeters long containing about 24 eggs on average.''Periplaneta brunnea'' Burmeister, 1838.
PaDIL. It is an

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutr ...

References

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 by

Morgan Hebard Morgan Hebard (February 23, 1887 – December 28, 1946) was an American entomologist who specialized in orthoptera, and assembled a collection of over 250,000 specimens. Early life and education Morgan Hebard was born on February 23, 1887, in Cl ...

, with a key to the figures on page 280. Cockroaches Insects described in 1838 {{cockroach-stub