Other Common Names
pictured beetle cockroach (
Wikipedia)
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
Authors: Saussure and Zehntner 1893
Size
small: 5.5-6.5 mm (Nickle and Gurney, 1985)
Identification
Silvery-gray, with overlying reddish mottled pattern on tegmina; pronotum dark reddish brown or black with irregular white or buff border. P. poeyi Saussure is glossy, uniformly translucent yellowish.
Det. E.G. Riley, 2010
Range
se. US (VA-FL-TX) to Central America:
"The presence of the neotropical cockroach Plectoptera picta Saussure and Zehnter in the United States was confirmed by Nickle and Gurney (1985) who considered it more likely that the species was introduced rather than native to the U. S. Its known distribution includes Costa Rica and Veracruz, Mexico with separate disjunct populations in Louisiana and eastern Texas, and in Virginia and North Carolina (Nickle and Gurney 1985; Atkinson et al. 1991). MacDonald and Combs (1989) also reported the species from southwestern Mississippi, a record that was overlooked by Atkinson et al. (1991). Schiefer collected a single specimen of P. picta, the first for Alabama, on 3 Aug. 1991 in Houston County, 0.5 miles north of the Florida line on Highway 109 by beating dead and dying trees." (Schiff and Schiefer 1999)
Remarks
Resembles a beetle. From an account (Nickle and Gurney, 1985):
The tegmina barely overlap, presenting more the appearance of beetle elytra than dictyopteroid tegmina. The resemblance is so close that the collector (a coleopterist) of the most recently collected specimen presumed that he had collected a small hydrophilid beetle.
Print References
Atkinson, T.H., P.G. Koehler and R.S. Patterson. 1991. Catalog and atlas of the cockroaches (Dictyoptera) of North America North of Mexico. Misc. Publ. Entomol. Soc. Amer. 78: l-85.
MacDonald, J.R. and R.L. Combs, Jr. 1989. Mississippi records of Plectoptera picta (Blattodea: Blatellidae) and Ataenius robustus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae). Entomol. News 100: 179-180.
Nickle, D.A. and A.B. Gurney. 1985. Confirmation of the neotropical cockroach
Plectoptera picta Saussure and Zehnter in the United States (Blattodea; Blatellidae). Proc. Entomol. Soc. Wash. 87: 187-190. (
BHL link)
Schiff, N. M. and T.L. Schiefer. 1999. New Blattodea records from Mississippi and Alabama. Entomological News. 110(4): 240-242.
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