Cockroach Diversity and Identification

Abstract

There are more than 4,000 known species of cockroaches throughout the world, most of which live in the tropics. Aside from living in our houses, cockroaches inhabit leaf litter and tree bark in temperate and tropical forests, grasslands, desert sand dunes, rotting logs, bird and ant nests, and caves. Cockroaches, being primitive insects, are relatives of termites (order Isoptera) and grasshoppers, crickets and katydids (order Orthoptera). The presently accepted scheme of classification places cockroaches in the order Dictyoptera and suborder Blattaria. The other suborder, Mantodea, contains the preying mandids. There are five major families of cockroaches: Cryptocercidae, Blattidae, Blaberidae, Blattellidae and Polyphagidae.