what is this bug?
Dear Whats That Bug:
Hello. I love your site. Considering I don’t know what this little guy is I let him leave unharmed. I have seen a couple of these bugs around my bathroom they crawl under the cracks of the sink and inside the bathtub. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with their nature but they come out closer to nighttime. When I was trying to take a picture of this one he was running so fast I only got one shot and that was a lucky one, keep in mind he isn’t any bigger than the fingernail on my pinky. He was crawling on the wall of the bathtub and I’m not sure if he fell or jumped but nevertheless he ended up on the inside of the bathtub. Do you know what he is??
Thank you sincerly,
Kristen J.
Hi Kristen,
We have never seen an immature Cockroach with this coloration pattern. We found a match on Bugguide that listed it only by genus Periplaneta. The submitted photos were from North Carolina.
I was searching to figure out what a certain bug we’ve had off an on in our new place was. I suspected it was a cockroach nymph, but my husband insisted it was a baby cricket or some sort of beetle. We just moved to NC from IN (but we’re from PA. 😉 The bug in this pic looks very similar, but not identical to the ones we have. Ours are fatter. They look just like the ones on this page, if you scroll to the bottom, identified as smokybrown cockroach nymph. http://insects.tamu.edu/extension/publications/epubs/e_359.cfm I think they may be the same bug, but I’m no expert. They definitely have the same coloration. Perhaps ours are female and the one on this page is a male? We only get them inside when it rains. I bet they’re coming up from our crawlspace. I want a basement in our house when we’re done renting! Crawlspaces are scary!
The photo looks like a beetle, not a cockroach.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/285493/bgimage
I’m having similar bugs crawling around my mattress at night as well.
I live in NC as well (RTP).
I think they are cockroach nymphs. I have no idea where they are hiding. And unlike cockroach, they love people, always catch one near or even on me.
Kill them before they grow big.
Have you found a solution yet?
I know this is an old thread post, but I have observed similar nymphs throughout my life in NC. Sometimes the stripe is yellow, sometimes it is red. Looking at the pictures, I have also seen adult smokeybrown roaches around, though usually not indoors.
I have the same problem. Every night I kill one or two in my bathroom. Especially around the tub but sometimes on the floor. They have like a yellow stripe on them and they are really small. I live in south Florida.