Eeeeeeeeeeek! What's this bug?
August 21, 2010 3:15 PM Subscribe
Help me identify this creepy crawly in my kitchen cabinets :(
Photo 1: Low-res photo with white background that shows the overall shape
Photo 2: Photo that shows the coloring better (after we'd brought it outside)
This insect was hiding out in a kitchen cabinet in Ithaca, NY (oddly enough not in a food-storage cabinet). I thought it was a cockroach, but it doesn't really look like the pictures I've seen around the internet, and I can't seem to find it on insect identification sites.
Any ideas? I need to know if I should fear for my life, my house, my food, or just my sanity.
Photo 1: Low-res photo with white background that shows the overall shape
Photo 2: Photo that shows the coloring better (after we'd brought it outside)
This insect was hiding out in a kitchen cabinet in Ithaca, NY (oddly enough not in a food-storage cabinet). I thought it was a cockroach, but it doesn't really look like the pictures I've seen around the internet, and I can't seem to find it on insect identification sites.
Any ideas? I need to know if I should fear for my life, my house, my food, or just my sanity.
Response by poster: I can't find any images in the Wikipedia cockroach article that really look much like my bug. Could you point to the particular image you're thinking of?
posted by Salvor Hardin at 3:20 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by Salvor Hardin at 3:20 PM on August 21, 2010
Check out the Bug Guide page with lots of pics of cockroaches of different types to see if these fit your guys more.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:24 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:24 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: That's absolutely a cockroach. I'm not really good with species identification but it looks like it might be the German or the Brown-banded variety.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 3:28 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by sevenyearlurk at 3:28 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Looks like an oriental cockroach. Also: Eww. But at least it's not one of those awful brown-banded ones.
posted by mittens at 3:28 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by mittens at 3:28 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Thou doth hath roaches. Yup, oriental roach. They are gross. Good luck.
posted by wandering_not_lost at 3:35 PM on August 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by wandering_not_lost at 3:35 PM on August 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Looks like an Asian cockroach nymph to me.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 3:37 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by kuujjuarapik at 3:37 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Oriental roaches (blatta orientalis) are usually a glossy black color and they are pretty big (approx an onch long). Granted, they are wingless, as is the one in the picture, but this may just be a larval instar. German and Brown-banded are much smaller than Oriental roaches.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 3:40 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by sevenyearlurk at 3:40 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: They call those "waterbugs" sometimes.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 3:55 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by Threeway Handshake at 3:55 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: La cucracha, la cucaracha, that's what that thing is.
posted by azpenguin at 4:00 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by azpenguin at 4:00 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Looks like an immature wood cockroach to me.
posted by youngergirl44 at 4:01 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by youngergirl44 at 4:01 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Immature cockroach, totally. What type is hard to tell, as there's a lot of color variation even within each species.
posted by desuetude at 4:13 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by desuetude at 4:13 PM on August 21, 2010
Response by poster: Ah, crap. Looks like immature wood cockroach is the most likely. Sigh, ok, thanks guys.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 5:05 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by Salvor Hardin at 5:05 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: For the record, I wouldn't panic over one cockroach in Ithaca. I've seen two cockroaches the whole time I've been in the northeast. Neither was followed by the horror that I lived with when I lived in San Francisco, the details of which I'll spare you.
Do you have lots of neighbors, ie., are you in an apartment building? If not -- summer's ending, it's getting cooler, clean the kitchen, put out a bug trap or two, and forget it.
(Although invariably this post will be followed by ten people going 'I live in Rochester and I've got 500 cockroaches in my hair right this second'.)
posted by A Terrible Llama at 5:12 PM on August 21, 2010
Do you have lots of neighbors, ie., are you in an apartment building? If not -- summer's ending, it's getting cooler, clean the kitchen, put out a bug trap or two, and forget it.
(Although invariably this post will be followed by ten people going 'I live in Rochester and I've got 500 cockroaches in my hair right this second'.)
posted by A Terrible Llama at 5:12 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Immature palmetto bug. Which is, indeed, la cucaracha.
That's the kind that comes in looking for water. Doesn't mean you are unclean in the least.
If you have pinestraw around the foundation of your home you should remove it. They like that.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:46 PM on August 21, 2010
That's the kind that comes in looking for water. Doesn't mean you are unclean in the least.
If you have pinestraw around the foundation of your home you should remove it. They like that.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:46 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Yup, it's a "waterbug":-(
I live in the South and have lots of woods and stuff around me and I see these in my house from time to time. I hate them with a mad burning passion! Everyone I know insists that getting them does not mean you're a bad housekeeper but I just about have a nervous breakdown every time I see one (probably cause I am kind of a bad housekeeper....).
I've had good luck with Raid bait traps, and sprinkling boric acid in my garage and around the doorways.
posted by cottonswab at 6:54 PM on August 21, 2010
I live in the South and have lots of woods and stuff around me and I see these in my house from time to time. I hate them with a mad burning passion! Everyone I know insists that getting them does not mean you're a bad housekeeper but I just about have a nervous breakdown every time I see one (probably cause I am kind of a bad housekeeper....).
I've had good luck with Raid bait traps, and sprinkling boric acid in my garage and around the doorways.
posted by cottonswab at 6:54 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Looks a lot like this immature cockroach
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:15 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:15 PM on August 21, 2010
Best answer: Again, to reiterate....years ago I rented a room from a woman who was so clean you could eat off her bathroom floor. Heck, you could have eaten off her toilet seat. She was ANAL about her housekeeping.
And she had these in the house occasionally.
If she could get them, ANYONE can.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:42 PM on August 21, 2010 [2 favorites]
And she had these in the house occasionally.
If she could get them, ANYONE can.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:42 PM on August 21, 2010 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I'm laughing. Come to Hawaii were we have manly cockroaches. The large winged varieties we call B-52's. We have these little ones too. German cockroaches we call them.
posted by Muirwylde at 11:23 PM on August 21, 2010
posted by Muirwylde at 11:23 PM on August 21, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks for the reassurance. I'll hold off on full-on panic until I find a B-52 in my salad ;)
posted by Salvor Hardin at 4:37 AM on August 22, 2010
posted by Salvor Hardin at 4:37 AM on August 22, 2010
A B-52 walked out of a salad that I had been eating for several minutes at a fancy restaurant once. It was a long time before I would eat restaurant salad again.
posted by aniola at 12:02 PM on August 22, 2010
posted by aniola at 12:02 PM on August 22, 2010
Hmm..those don't really look like the German ones we had in our old apartment. They look like small (immature I guess) regular roaches. Gross yes, but pretty easy to deal with. Make sure you keep all your food locked up tight. Spray some Raid or tuck away some bait. That will keep them at bay.
posted by radioamy at 7:10 PM on August 23, 2010
posted by radioamy at 7:10 PM on August 23, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 3:16 PM on August 21, 2010