Lobster Cockroach

The Lobster Roach, has become a well established feeder insect for arachnids and lizards due to their ease of rearing and palatability. They also have a very high meat to shell ratio and live up to one year.
This species has a worldwide distribution and was originally named Blatta cinerea in 1789 from specimens taken in Mauritius and was not given its present name Nauphoeta cinerea until 1922. Studies indicate that its native home is East Africa. Movement to other countries would have been no doubt by trading vessels and galleons as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Colonies were identified in Florida, U.S.A in 1952 and were found established in an area of Tampa, Florida where there were mills producing animal feeds. Hence the common name Tampa Cockroach. It was firsty recorded in Australia in 1918 where it is regarded as a ‘semi-domestic’ species, as it is found in out-houses and stores rather than in dwellings. Newly hatched nymphs crawl beneath the female, even under her wings, and remain there for about an hour after hatching.