Where do Brown-Banded Cockroaches Lay Eggs?

Effects of Temperature

Temperature variations create a major impact on the life cycle traits of cockroaches. Therefore, the factors of brown-banded cockroach egg production, longevity and other traits reported here might be somewhat different than reported elsewhere.

Egg Case

Brown-banded cockroaches carry their eggs in an ootheca, otherwise known as an egg case.

The female carries the egg case for about 30 hours after the eggs are mature and the egg case hardens, which at that time she extrudes the egg case from her body and “glues” the case in the following locations:

• Walls

• Ceilings

• Furniture

• Other surfaces located in dark, protected and hidden areas.

For obvious reasons, this cockroach is sometimes called the furniture roach. When the cockroach population is large and concentrated, females will deposit eggs cases in bunches rather than scatter them out over a larger area.

Composition

Egg cases are composed of thick, hardened proteins that form a protective shell that makes the egg case essentially impenetrable to pest control products and helps to conserve moisture inside the eggs – thus ensuring proper egg development and hatching.

Egg cases are about ¼ inch long, are reddish-brown colored and described as being somewhat purse-shaped.

Production & Incubation

Female brown-banded roaches produce about 14 egg cases during their adult life, with each egg case containing approximately 14-17 individual eggs. However, usually only about 12 of these eggs will hatch.

Eggs incubate from 37-103 days depending upon the temperature in their environment. Female adult brown-banded cockroaches live between 13-45 weeks and each mature adult will produce from 90-276 roaches per year.

Obviously, if egg cases are not found and destroyed as part of the brown-banded cockroach pest management plan, there will be continual repopulation of roaches hatching from egg cases that are hidden and not destroyed.