''Parcoblatta zebra'', the banded wood cockroach, is a species of ''
Parcoblatta
''Parcoblatta'' is a genus of 12 species of native North American wood cockroaches. The males often have wings and are drawn to lights, while the females are flightless.
References
External links
Cockroach genera
{{Cockroach-stub ...
'' native to the United States.
[ It has dark transverse bands across the back of its abdomen.][
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Description
The male of the species has a distinctive specialization of its median segment, which has a heavy tuft of agglutinated (stuck together) hairs directed toward its head, and a low, hairy ridge across the segment in front of the tuft.[ The specialization occurs only in one other ''Parcoblatta'' species, '' P. americana'', but is "decidedly greater" in ''P. zebra''.][
The male pronotum is elliptical, widest at the middle, and its back edge, sides, and all its angles are rounded.][ Its tegmina are fully developed, and delicate in structure. The space between its compound eyes is about a third of the distance between its antennal sockets.][
Coloration of the male includes a dull yellow head, including its ]ocelli
A simple eye or ocellus (sometimes called a pigment pit) is a form of eye or an optical arrangement which has a single lens without the sort of elaborate retina that occurs in most vertebrates. These eyes are called "simple" to distinguish the ...
(simple eye spots), with a vertical "prout's brown" stripe from between the ocelli down to the middle of the clypeus
The clypeus is one of the sclerites that make up the face of an arthropod. In insects, the clypeus delimits the lower margin of the face, with the labrum articulated along the ventral margin of the clypeus. The mandibles bracket the labrum, but ...
at the bottom of the face[ The disc of the ]pronotum
The prothorax is the foremost of the three segments in the thorax of an insect, and bears the first pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the pronotum (dorsal), the prosternum (ventral), and the propleuron (lateral) on e ...
(the plate behind the head) is a reddish-brown, its sides are a translucent yellow, and the back fourth is a darker brown.[ The ]tegmina
A tegmen (: tegmina) designates the modified leathery front wing on an insect particularly in the orders Dermaptera (earwigs), Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets and similar families), Mantodea (praying mantis), Phasmatodea (stick and leaf insec ...
(outer forewings) are a transparent, brownish-yellow. Its underside and cerci (two rear appendages) are dark brown.[ Its legs are yellow.][ The base of each abdominal segment on its back has a dark band across it, while the rear half is pale.][
The female is larger and more robust than the male, although its somewhat tegmina are shorter, ending at the fifth abdominal segment, and it is incapable of sustained flight.][ Its pronotum is widest near the base, and the back edge is slightly rounded.][ The space between its compound eyes is much broader than in the male.][
Coloration of the female includes a yellow head, with a transverse brown bar between the antennae. The disc of its pronotum and its tegmina are both reddish-brown with transparent yellow sides.][ Its legs, sides and middle of the underside of its abdomen, and the back half of each abdominal segment on its back are yellow.][ The front half of its dorsal abdominal segments are dark, a transverse banding that is unique among females of the genus ''Parcoblatta''.][
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Distribution
The species is known in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas.[ It may also occur in New Mexico.]
Habitat
Specimens have been found in the cavity of a dead sweet gum
''Liquidambar'', commonly called sweetgum (star gum in the UK), gum, redgum, satin-walnut, styrax or American storax, is the only genus in the flowering plant family Altingiaceae and has 15 species. They were formerly often treated as a part of ...
tree, under a sign on a shortleaf pine
The shortleaf pine or ''Pinus echinata'' is a species of coniferous tree endemic to the United States. The shortleaf pine is sometimes referred to as the "old field", "spruce", "rosemary", "yellow", "two-leaf" and "heart" pine. The common name " ...
, and beneath a log in a cypress swamp.[
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References
External links
Drawings
from a 1917 article by Morgan Hebard. Plate III, labeled 10-14, of ''P. zebra'' body parts and a dorsal view of male and specimens. Key to drawings on pages 277.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parcoblatta zebra
Cockroaches
Insects described in 1917