CLOSED: If this is a roach, why does it look like this?

Please tell me it's a lookalike and not a roach.

This really stinks if that's what it is.

This message was edited Feb 7, 2009 11:32 AM

Yep with the ootheca - or egg sack.

Why are the wings so short?

This was on the outside of a potato grow bag I made. I removed it, but . . . do I need to throw the unfinished potato plants away?

This was just outside the house of a very stressed out friend of mine who has been battling a flea problem and flea-bombed several times. So I'm thinking this roach crawled out to get some fresh air. Should I tell her about it?

Of course, it is possible that the roach came with the seed potatoes I ordered or the bagged soil or the straw (planted one month ago), but if it's old enough to reproduce - and I found it on the outside of the bag - probably not?

*sigh* She isn't going to take this well.

How far was it from the house? There are native roaches at least around here we have wood roaches, but with longer wings. Don't throw the plants away. Potatos grow in dirt, how can they get any dirtier?

Right by the porch.

Don't they carry disease? Won't they try to work their way in there and eat the potatoes? (Assuming that there ARE actually potatoes growing in there, not just roots.)

Geeze, this whole gardening on other people's property thing really isn't working out for me. Gotta get my own house soooon. :o(

I feel your pain. Have you seen roaches like that inside buidlings in your area?
Well, i' m way out of my league here as far as knowing what a roach will do...All I can say about it is, we have wood roaches here that will fly onto the window screen at night in early summer, one here and there. Never see them otherwise. except when I had to collect bugs for Entomology--found some under a rotten log. I vaguely remember something about roaches in mulch. I've never had any in my potatos or found them in my leaf piles or mulch.
I don't think they'll try to eat all the potatos - there's plenty of other stuff outside for them.

Carry disease, well yes, But from where to where. Is there a lot of really diseased stuff lying around there?
I agree its very frustrating to be a gardener at heart without your own garden!

This could be a wood cockroach in the genus Parcoblatta; females normally are wingless or brachypterous (as in this specimen) - see http://www.cedarcreek.umn.edu/insects/album/014005005ap.html
Males are full winged and sometimes fly to lights at night. However, they seldom if ever set up housekeeping indoors, and as far as I know, members of this genus have never been implicated in spread of any human disease. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parcoblatta_pennsylvanica for more information.

Sally - Thanks for talking me down. I was having a bit of a freakout there.

Suunto - Your expertise is priceless. I'm glad you came along and settled the matter.

Whoever applied 'blatta' to roaches in the first place had the right idea. Yuck Pffllllt.

LOL, Sally! If it came from the woods, it's just lost, that's all. Not filthy or disease carrying, like others said, they just eat rotten plant matter, so they're beneficial. I find them in our house all the time (we live in the middle of the woods), and I just pick 'em up with my bare hands and put 'em back outside under the moist leaves. No biggie. :)