100 More Species #83: Wood roach

[urbpan]

Comments

[cdozo]

I am unlucky enough to have a healthy indoor population of what people here call "tree roaches." A few come in to visit every summer, but these guys settled in while I was at Kerrville and there are still about ten of them in the house. On the plus side, they are fun to hunt.

[urbpan]

Never heard that common name before, but it looks to me like that's a regionalism for what I call the American cockroach, and others call palmetto bugs or water bugs.

[cdozo]

Yeah, my mom called them "palmetto bugs." They don't look much like what I would call a cockroach, but they probabl are. I'm just used to the German cockroaches in NYC. My roaches are big and brown and, when they are scared, they make a smell that smells like old pee.

[urbpan]

http://urbpan.livejournal.com/tag/american%20cockroach