Pennsylvania wood cockroach
The Pennsylvania wood cockroach lives outdoors in the woods, under loose bark and in old stumps. The males are dark brown with yellow edges and long wings, while the females have only tiny wings. It sometimes wanders into houses by mistake.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It often hitches a ride into houses hidden in firewood.
Males fly to lights at night, which is how they sometimes get inside.
Its eggs come in a little curved case shaped like a half moon, with up to 32 eggs inside.
The young can take up to 2 years to grow up.
Unlike pest cockroaches, it almost never breeds inside homes.
Most asked questions about Pennsylvania wood cockroach
?Is the Pennsylvania wood cockroach dangerous?
No. It is harmless and usually lives outside in the woods.
?Why is there a wood cockroach in my house?
It probably came in with firewood or flew toward the lights. It will not usually stay or breed indoors.
?What does a wood cockroach eat?
Rotting plant material like dead leaves and wood.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Parcoblatta pennsylvanica
- Group
- Cockroaches and termites
- Family
- Ectobiidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Blattodea > Ectobiidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Pennsylvanian cockroach
Where the facts come from
- Pennsylvania wood cockroach (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Happy1892. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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