Baby German Roach: What the Young Ones Look Like and What They Tell You

A baby German roach is tiny, dark brown to nearly black, has no wings, and has two dark stripes on its back right behind the head. If you see one in your kitchen or bathroom, the roaches are not visiting. They are breeding inside your Brevard County home, and the nest is close by.

TL;DR

• Young German roaches are darker than the adults, with no wings and two dark stripes behind the head.
• They range from about 1/8 inch to just over 1/2 inch as they grow.
• The female carries an egg case of about 40 eggs until just before it hatches.
• Babies stay near where they hatched. Seeing them means the colony lives in your house.
• Spray and bombs are the wrong tools. Bait and a plan over several visits are the right ones.

What does a baby German roach look like?

A German roach starts life about 1/8 inch long, close to the size of a grain of rice laid flat. Rutgers Extension puts the young ones, called nymphs, at 1/8 to 9/16 inch. They shed their skin five or six times on the way to adult size.

Here is what to look for:

• Color. Dark brown to nearly black. Darker than the tan adults.
• Stripes. Two dark stripes on the shield behind the head. The University of Florida notes that young and adults both have them. Very small ones also show a pale stripe down the middle of the back.
• No wings. Only adults have wings.
• White ones. A roach that looks pure white has just shed its skin. It darkens in a few hours. It is not a rare kind of roach.

What does a German roach egg case look like?

The egg case is a small capsule, about 5/16 inch long. Rutgers says one case holds about 40 eggs. The female carries it on the tip of her body until just before the eggs hatch.

That is the trick that makes German roaches hard. She does not leave the case out in the open where a treatment can reach it. So when you see an adult with a small capsule on her back end, that is a whole batch of babies on the way.

Why seeing babies matters more than seeing one adult

One adult roach can ride in on a box. Babies cannot. They are born in your home, and they stay close to where they hatched.

The Pests in the Home Extension guide says a German roach colony is about 80 percent nymphs and 20 percent adults. It also says very small nymphs on a sticky trap point to a hiding place within about 5 to 10 feet of that trap. So the baby you see is a map. Look in the nearest warm, damp crack: under the sink, behind the fridge, inside the dishwasher door, or at the hinge of a cabinet by the stove.

If you see babies in daylight, the hiding spots are full. That points to a bigger colony.

What we see in Brevard

Ron's point on German roaches is that they need products rotated in a set order, timed to the life cycle, because they build resistance. Babies are the reason that timing matters. A visit can knock down the roaches you see, and two weeks later the next batch walks out of an egg case that was safe the first time.

The other thing Ron sees: a condo building is a much bigger job than a house. In a building in Melbourne or Cocoa Beach, many kitchens share walls and pipes, so babies in your unit may have neighbors in the next one. Our post on how long it takes to get rid of German roaches covers the timeline and the follow up visits.

What to do now

1. Set a few sticky traps: under the kitchen sink, beside the stove, by the fridge and behind the toilet. Write down what you catch every few days.
2. Look at the trap with the most babies. The hiding spot is usually within a few feet of it.
3. Stop spraying and skip the bombs. The Extension guide says foggers do not reach the places roaches hide.
4. Fix the drip under the sink, wipe the counters at night, and take up pet bowls before bed.
5. Get cardboard boxes out of the house the day they come in. If you are not sure why they showed up, our post on German roaches in a clean house walks through how they get in.

When to call somebody

If you see babies in more than one room, see them in daylight, or the trap counts do not drop after a few weeks, there is a colony that store products are not reaching. A German roach job takes an inspection and a few planned visits. Our general pest control service covers roaches in Palm Bay, Viera and across the county.

Sources

• Rutgers Cooperative Extension FS1322: German cockroach
• University of Florida Entomology: German cockroach
• Pests in the Home, Cooperative Extension: German cockroach

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