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Sticker of Small yellow cockroach
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Small yellow cockroach

Cariblatta lutea
Name means: “the yellow light-shy insect of the Caribbean: Cariblatta joins the Carib people with blatta, Latin for an insect that hides from light, and lutea means yellow”

The small yellow cockroach is a tiny, pale brownish-yellow cockroach, only about as long as a grain of rice. It likes to hide in the leaves, grass and pine needles on the forest floor.

Lives in
The southeastern United States and Cuba, in forests and scrub
Length
5.4 to 9.5 mm (0.21 to 0.37 in)
Top speed
about 1.7 km/h (1.1 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Like most wild cockroaches, it nibbles on dead leaves and other bits it finds in the leaf litter.
For real!Photo of Small yellow cockroach
Picture by Happy1892. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Small yellow cockroach about 9.5 mm long (0.37 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailas long as 1.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 2.1 secondsmoves 50 times its own body length every second

How big is Small yellow cockroach compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

A baby that has just hatched is less than 2 millimetres long.

2

There are two subspecies, the small yellow cockroach and the even smaller least yellow cockroach.

3

The females are bigger than the males and have longer wings.

4

It has been found in gopher burrows, in marshes and in the grass behind beaches.

5

A tiny wasp may lay its eggs inside the cockroach's egg case.

you asked

Most asked questions about Small yellow cockroach

?Where does the small yellow cockroach live?

In the southeastern United States and Cuba, in the leaf litter of forests and scrub.

?How big is the small yellow cockroach?

Usually about 7 millimetres long, a bit smaller than a fingernail.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Cariblatta lutea
Named by
Saussure & Zehntner, 1893
Group
Cockroaches and termites
Family
Ectobiidae
Classification
Insecta > Blattodea > Ectobiidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Cariblatta lutea (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Happy1892. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Cockroaches and termites

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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