Cockroach Confession

[Graham Saunders]

Oh dear. What penalties are there for destroying native wildlife? The other evening I found a cockroach in my house: Small and biege my initial thought was that it was a Blatella germanica (German Cockroach). So it was dispatched. However, I have now inspected the cadavre more closely. It appears to be identical to "A Native Bush Cockroach" in Andrew Crowe's book, Celatoblatta sp. Should I expect a visit from some burly lads from DoC who will administer a beating? I don't have a fire, and so have no firewood; so why did it come in? I presume my gard... errr ... jungle approximates to native bush, and I'm rather pleased it was around. It would be nice to think that a few others are around too. I'm not so happy about the Drymaplaneta semivitta (Gisbourne Cockroach), which come in from time to time. I know that this species is not a pest, but it isn't native; I've declared war on them. Four were 'removed' from my deck the other evening.

[Jan]

We get a lot of Ceratoblatta sp.[sp?] around our house and garden.
I used to dispatch them fast but now I know what they are, from Peter
Johns, entomologist extraordinaire, at Canterbury Museum, I take more care.
They can even be recusitated from the bellbird's sugar-water, if not quite
drowned.
They are about 2cm long and fairly slow, compared to the german one.

[Graham Saunders]

Thanks Jan. Yes, I was perplexed by how slow it moved in comparison to the rushed scuttling of other cockroaches. Since it doesn't appaer to have an English name, I shall from now on refer to them as Jan's Cockroach...