#blattid

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American Cockroach

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#115 - American Cockroach

The Australian and American Cockroachs are also quite common thanks to the high temperatures here in Australia, and have probably Asian and African origins, respectively. This sort of difficulty is typical for synanthropic species, that love humans so much that it's now difficult to tell where they originally came from. It's a pity that Periplaneta has such a bad rap - they're actually a fascinating insect, if you can get over the squick factor. See, for example, the one in the photo below, fastidiously cleaning her antennae as she clings to a vertical wall. Off to the left you can see her cerci poking out - two organs fantastically sensitive to air motion. If she detects any that feel like something rushing in to attack, or squash her, her astonishing reflexes will send her running before the signal even reaches the brain. Her long spiky legs are wonderfully adapted for running at speed - in one experiment carried out at the University of California, Berkeley in 1991, a Periplaneta americana registered a record speed of 5.4 km/h (3.4 mph), about 50 body lengths per second, which would be comparable to a human running at 330 km/h. She'll be running so fast her front legs actually lift off the ground, the aerodynamics of her body keeping her skimming along parallel to the ground as her hindlegs continue to propel her along.

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Native Roach - dunno which species or genus, alas

EDIT: Zonioploca sp.

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#111 - Native Cockroach 1

EDIT: IDed by David Rentz, via BowerBird - it's a Zonioploca :)

*****

I see two particular species most often - one that's either of the genus Anamesia, or Zonioploca pallida, who I usually see carrying their egg cases around for safekeeping, and a smaller, similarly wingless species that's all black, but which are also eggcase carriers.

Any ideas what species she is, people?

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#110 - Half-banded Shining Cockroach

Drymaplaneta semivitta, also known in New Zealand as the Gisbourne Roach, where it was introduced.

Going for a walk in the evenings is certainly giving me a good idea of the variety of cockroaches around the area. And not one of the ones I've seen on these walks is a pest species, although this one and the  Common Shining Cockroach  wanders into houses fairly regularly, where they promptly falls victim to cats.