Red cockroaches and all the most interesting things about them

Appearance and structure

Red cockroaches are a small species compared to other members of this family.

The size of a normal imago (adult) is one and a half centimeters .

The head is oblong, the eyes are widely spaced, dark. The legs of red cockroaches are long, with special suction cups that allow them to move along vertical planes .

The body is colored reddish-yellow and consists of the following parts :

• cephalothorax;
• abdomen;
• head.

The insect has developed wings with hard wing covers on top, but does not know how to fly , it can only glide, falling from a height. But there are also flying cockroaches. The mouthparts are gnawing.

In males, the body is narrow, the abdomen is wedge-shaped, its edge is not covered by wings

The body of females is wider, the abdomen is rounded, completely covered by wings.

One of the most important organs of cockroaches is the antennae, which are very sensitive to all kinds of odors . With their help, Prussians communicate with their relatives and navigate in space. The loss of one or both whiskers becomes a real tragedy for these insects, as they are deprived of information about the world around them.

REFERENCE! A distinctive feature of Prussians is the cerci - small tails at the end of the body (one on each side).

Photo

You can clearly see the appearance in the photo of red cockroaches below:

How to fight

How can you effectively deal with a cockroach problem?

Your best bet is a comprehensive approach:

• Improve sanitation to reduce the amount of food available to parasites.
• Reduce clutter so redheads have fewer places to hide and breed.
• Create barriers to limit the Prussians' access to your home. For example, use caulk to seal cracks around electrical outlets and eliminate water leaks that give cockroaches access to the moisture they need.
• Use pesticide powders (such as boric acid or diatomaceous earth). Apply it generously but selectively in hard-to-reach places, such as behind cabinets or under the sink.
• Place insecticidal baits in areas where you see cockroaches but where children and pets cannot reach them. For example, behind the refrigerator.

Chemicals

Insecticides are most effective in controlling cockroaches when combined with sanitation and exclusion methods that limit the cockroaches' ability to reproduce or re-enter. But chemical control alone will not solve the problem. If insecticides are used, they should always be used with extreme caution. Internal chemical control is only justified if a massive cockroach population has been established, not for the occasional intruder or two.

Traditional methods

A cheap natural bait for red cockroaches is boric acid mixed with flour and sugar in equal parts. The pests carry the bait back to the colony, poisoning the lair. Dissolve the mixture in water and spray along the floorboards in the rooms.

You can repel cockroaches with essential oils, but it is not fatal to them.

Reproduction

Cockroaches belong to insects with incomplete metamorphosis (transformation). They do not have a pupal stage, and the larvae take on the appearance of an adult after several molts.

Red Prussians breed throughout the year.

Females lay eggs (about 30 pieces) in a small brown capsule (ootheca). The female carries the future offspring with her at the end of the abdomen (the protruding part of the ootheca is visible to the naked eye) until the larvae hatch (2-4 weeks) .

The initial color of the larvae is white, gradually darkening. The larvae (nymphs) undergo six molts until they take on the form of an adult. Over the course of their entire lives, females bear from four to ten oothecae and contribute to the birth of up to 300 young cockroaches.

How long do red cockroaches live?

The life expectancy of red Prussians at home and with sufficient food and water is from 8 to 10 months (this period of time includes the life expectancy of the imago (7 - 8 months) and the nymph stage).

How do cockroaches reproduce?

Knowing how cockroaches reproduce, you can achieve their complete disappearance from your home in a short time. Most often in a city apartment you can find Prussians, or red cockroaches.

Sometimes their black relatives also coexist with humans. In any case, these unpleasant insects appear suddenly and in large numbers. Why is this happening?

What is ootheca

Literally translated, this word means “egg storage.” This is true: a small chitin capsule reaches a size of only 10-12 mm (in domestic red cockroaches), but inside it can contain 30-40 cockroach eggs filled with a protein substance. This mass reliably protects future insects from adverse external influences. Advice! When apartment owners poison cockroaches, only the larvae and adults that come into direct contact with pesticides die. Deferred oothecae are invulnerable to many of the agents that are currently known. They can retain their contents even when insects are frozen: the dense shell and the filling mass are able to provide a temperature acceptable for the life of the eggs for a long time.

After the owners have finished treating the apartment and are quietly enjoying the absence of harmful neighbors, a new colony of cockroaches is preparing to be born somewhere in a secluded place.

The maturation of eggs lasts for 14-30 days from the moment they are laid in the capsule. But the female cockroach carries it on herself for some time, leaving it only in an ideal place for this. Therefore, it is impossible to predict for sure when the birth of cockroaches will occur.

Growth and development of cockroaches

The larvae (nymphs) are born very small. Their size before the 1st molt is only 1-2 mm, and they are not very similar to their restless parents. The main difference is the absence of wings. The larvae will acquire them only at the stage of transformation into an adult.

Nymphs practically do not leave the place where they hatched, feeding on the remains of the contents of the capsule and possible crumbs of other food that fall into the nest.

After molting once, they become larger and more mobile, begin to explore the kitchen area and actively search for food. At this time, only a very attentive housewife can notice them, but it is still difficult to identify impudent domestic cockroaches in small brown bugs.

And only 1-1.5 months after birth, in harmless-looking bugs, it will be possible to guess the traits that domestic red cockroaches possess. And after another 1-2 weeks, the larvae will molt for the last time, and the owners of the apartment will only have to contemplate in surprise the newly appeared disgusting neighbors.

The intimate life of parasites

Sometimes you can come across the statement that a cockroach is a hermaphrodite. This is not so: like all insects, the red neighbors of humans are dioecious. Both males and females are required for reproduction. But the secret of how cockroaches multiply in an apartment, getting there in a single copy, lies in the characteristics of the female. Important! After intercourse with a male, she can retain his seminal fluid for almost her entire life. During this time, she will have time to lay about 10 oothecae. About 30 new cockroaches are born from each. Reaching sexual maturity at the age of 4 months, red cockroaches (domestic, or Prussian) are able to reproduce exponentially in a short period of time.

Therefore, even clean apartments in new buildings are occupied by these residents very quickly. After this, it is almost impossible to completely destroy them, since they can breed in garbage chutes or garbage cans in the warm season and move to warmer basements and apartments in winter.

Interesting facts about cockroach reproduction

The reproduction of cockroaches is regulated by the external environment. If the apartment is too cold or too hot, there is little food available, or there are other reasons for dissatisfaction with life, insects may lay eggs much less frequently than usual.

The female can also carry the capsule on herself for a long time if there is no suitable place for breeding the cubs. How many days the nymph grows depends on the availability of food, water and warmth. And it would be much easier to deal with insects if they did not consider the same conditions that humans provide themselves as ideal.

In the average kitchen, cockroaches find an abundance of food (crumbs, garbage, food in accessible places, soap, leather goods or paper), and an ideal temperature of about +25 ° C, and access to water sources, and the absence of natural enemies. Attention! This makes it possible for even the smallest larvae to survive, and it also determines how quickly cockroaches reproduce. After all, after each female grows to adulthood, she also finds these conditions suitable for laying eggs, and the process repeats.

Red Prussians, in addition to the difference in growth rate, also do not hesitate to snack on the cubs of their relatives. Thanks to this, the population of black cockroaches in Russia is gradually declining.

Domestic cockroaches have absolutely no seasonality in breeding offspring. Insects can reproduce almost all year round, because the conditions for each small larva to grow quickly are maintained in the apartment both in winter and summer. Both black and red neighbors of a person behave this way. Tip! No less interesting is the fact that female black cellar cockroaches carry an ootheca in their abdomen. When the time comes, they give birth to small, live young. Nymphs are not colored, have a light shade of chitinous body cover and are very vulnerable to adult rufous individuals. How to cope with the invasion of the Prussians and prevent their appearance in large numbers? Considering that the breeding cycle of cockroaches is not regular, and the capsule with eggs remains unharmed during disinfestation, we can only rely on the destruction of already hatched nymphs and adults.

But in order to prevent insects from growing quietly during the period between treatments, it is very convenient to use traps and gels. These products are unnoticeable, harmless to humans and animals, do not smell, but contain either strong poisons or bacteria and fungi that can kill a cockroach within 1-2 days.

Even growing larvae that begin an active search for food can be affected by fatal diseases without having time to grow and give birth to new offspring.

Lifestyle and nutrition

Prussians do not like daylight and crawl out of their hiding places only at night.

If you suddenly have suspicions about the appearance of uninvited red-haired guests in your apartment, turn on the light in the kitchen at night: live cockroaches will splash out from the sink and from the dining table in all directions.

The favorite habitats of domestic red cockroaches are all kinds of narrow crevices (so that the back and abdomen of the insect are in close contact with surfaces): in the floor, under baseboards, in door jambs, furniture . In addition, Prussians can choose household appliances and books for settlement.

These insects are omnivores . Food for them can be not only food, but also paper, wallpaper paste, book bindings, fabric and even soap.

Cockroaches are capable of starving for a long time, but they cannot tolerate drought at all. If the Prussians can survive without food for a whole month, then without water they will not survive even a week.

Where do cockroaches live in human housing?

Specifically, in human buildings, they live in places that are constantly heated and closest to food and water. In residential areas, they usually accumulate behind furniture and household appliances in kitchens - behind cabinets, behind refrigerators, gas and electric stoves, near trash cans and under sinks, in bathrooms and toilets. In apartment buildings or private buildings, they also inhabit basements, attics, utility rooms, and in enterprises - canteens, warehouses, and sometimes even offices. In stores, they live behind and under refrigerators, among packages of goods, above false ceilings - in general, wherever they can hide and from where they can get to water and food.

It is important to understand that due to their small size, red cockroaches can hide in very narrow crevices, which are even invisible to the naked eye. And their first instar larvae can stay for weeks where people don’t look, and feed on chitinous shells shed by their older comrades. That is, whole clusters of such young nymphs can live in an apartment, and you won’t even know about it.

Moreover, if they find food everywhere, because they can consume almost any organic matter, then they need water very much. They can drink condensation on the walls, water from the sewer, that is, water that people do not drink, but this water must be there. Therefore, for example, in silos, where there is a lot of grain and husks, and all the water is absorbed into this husk, there are no red cockroaches. They have nothing to drink here.

And, by the way, when fighting them, it is useful to reduce the number of open sources of water indoors to a minimum. You will not completely eliminate these sources, but the fewer of them there are, the more difficult it will be for your cockroaches to survive here and resist your attempts to destroy them.

For what reasons do they appear in a particular residential area?

There are several reasons:

• unsanitary conditions . Always dirty floors, unwashed dishes, cluttered corners, food residues lying around in different places (this could be spilled sugar or flour);
• things from trips . An insect can come to your home in a travel bag, having entered it from a hotel or train carriage;
• dysfunctional neighbors . It doesn’t matter which side the sluts are next to you (above, below, through the wall). Cockroaches will definitely get into your apartment from the ventilation hole or cracks in the walls and floor;
• faulty water and sewer pipes . Small damp places under the drop and warmth - this is a real cockroach paradise. As long as there is moisture nearby and the temperature in the apartment does not drop below 10 degrees, the Prussians will be ready to live with you forever.

How quickly do Prussians reproduce and grow?

Red cockroaches do not reproduce very quickly, not rapidly, not as quickly as, for example, aphids or, say, bedbugs reproduce, but quickly enough so that when an apartment suitable for living is found, they populate all available places there.

Specifically in terms of time at room temperature:

• The eggs in the female's ooteca at the end of the abdomen develop in 40-50 days. The female carries this ooteca with her until the nymphs hatch. That is, calling her pregnant is incorrect, but at the same time we can talk about some semblance of caring for the offspring.
• The nymphs emerging from the ooteca grow quite quickly, molt 7 times, that is, they go through 6 larval stages of development and turn into adult cockroaches in 60-70 days, in 2-2.5 months, at a temperature of 20°C and in 50-60 days ( 1.5-2 months) at 30°C.

That is, already four months after hatching from the egg, each female for the first time gives birth to 30-35 new nymphs, which themselves will begin to reproduce in 2-3 months.

By the way, cockroaches that have just molted are white; they are sometimes mistakenly called albinos. But after 2-3 hours the integument of their body hardens and they become ordinary red cockroaches:

This is faster than that of other cockroaches, although it may seem that this is quite long and within such a period of development of a new generation - six months - all cockroaches can be destroyed. So it is, and the Prussians are saved only by their ability to live where people rarely look, and, accordingly, they are not seen, and their small size.

Plus, there is this point: one female manages to bear from 4 to 8 ootheca during her life, and, therefore, gives birth to from 120 to 300 new nymphs. Therefore, over the course of a year indoors, one pair of cockroaches will give you several hundred parasites.

In cold rooms, red cockroaches reproduce more slowly, in warm rooms - faster. Similarly, nymphs at a temperature of 20° grow for 2-2.5 months, and at 30° for 1.5-2 months.

In general, this means that it is not a problem to destroy cockroaches, simply killing them when you meet them. Just a slipper. If you are sure that new insects are not getting into your apartment, then those that are already there are very easy to catch, kill or poison. And with such a targeted hunt for them, they will not have time to compensate for the decline in their population by reproduction.

When I was a child and I wanted to see how cockroaches live, how they grow and reproduce, I started catching them in the kitchen at night, putting them in jars and watching them. In a couple of weeks I caught all the cockroaches in the apartment. There are no more of them left here. And you can do this too, if you really don’t want to poison them all at once.

Do they cause harm to humans?

IMPORTANT! Red cockroaches are dangerous to humans : constantly in contact with garbage, household waste, dirt, they are carriers of pathogenic bacteria, as well as worm eggs.

Intestinal disorders, tuberculosis, helminthiasis are just a few of the diseases that Prussians can bring on their paws.

Do red cockroaches bite?

Scientists knew of several cases when these pests ate away the keratinized parts of the dermis on the face and hands of people, but did not cause any tangible harm to them. So we can safely say that Prussians do not bite .

Fighting methods

As soon as you discover the presence of at least one red-haired Prussian in the house, take immediate action .

Because in just 2 weeks your home will be swarming with hordes of these annoying parasites.

To make the fight against cockroaches more effective, you need to do the following :

• place food in containers or tightly sealed bags;
• ensure that dirty dishes with food residues on them are not left in the sink or on the kitchen table;
• keep the apartment clean;
• Dispose of household waste in a timely manner, do not accumulate garbage for several days;
• put all pipes and plumbing in order, eliminate leaks;
• Do not leave water containers on the surface where insects could drink.

After this, you can start baiting the Prussians.

How to get rid of red cockroaches in an apartment? This can be done using industrial insecticides. Today, there are a great variety of means for exterminating domestic cockroaches. These are gels: Dohlox, Global; aerosols: Raid, Clean House, Raptor; crayons, powders: FAS, Karbofos; emulsions, special traps, etc. You can entrust the disinfestation of the premises to specialists or do it yourself.

It is possible to cope with cockroach mass using traditional methods :

• using boric acid (powder). This substance dehydrates the body of pests. Acid is mixed into mashed potatoes, rolled into balls and placed throughout the house;

IMPORTANT! If there are pets or small children in the apartment, use this method with caution! Boric acid is poisonous!

• using self-made traps . To do this, a glass jar (edges) is lubricated with a sticky substance (oil or Vaseline), and bait is placed inside.

To make the battle with the red evil spirits more effective, it is advisable to cooperate with all your neighbors. Then you will be one hundred percent sure that not a single “Prussian enemy” will remain alive. If, nevertheless, the enemy broke through the defenses, then after reading our article you now know how to get red cockroaches out of the apartment.

How to kill red cockroaches

Without food, the red cockroach lives a long time, but without water and at low temperatures they die. These features are often taken into account when exterminating insects.

The main methods by which you can defeat cockroaches:

1. Freezing out the home. Relevant in private homes.

2. Limiting access to water and food, maintaining cleanliness and order.

3. The use of boric acid in baits.

4. Homemade or industrial traps.

5. Use of ultrasonic devices.

6. Chemicals.

Detailed information about this can be read in the article “How to get rid of cockroaches in the house forever.”

Well, if all attempts to destroy insects are unsuccessful, there is always a way out, which is to turn to professionals. A few hours will pass and you will forget about cockroaches, if not forever, then for a long time for sure.