THE BIOTIC ASSOCIATIONS OF 

 COCKROACHES ' 



By Louis M. Roth and Edwin R. Willis 2 



Pioneering Research Division, United States Army 



Quartermaster Research and Engineering Center 



Natick, Mass. 



(With 37 Plates) 



With most of us collectors the life history of an insect begins in 

 the net and ends in the bottle. 



Hanitsch (1928) 



I. INTRODUCTION 



Recently we brought together much of the literature Hnking cock- 

 roaches with the transmission of certain organisms that cause disease 

 in man and other vertebrates. In that paper (1957a) we concluded 

 that cockroaches, being potential vectors of pathogenic agents, should 

 not be regarded simply as minor annoyances. Obviously the associa- 

 tions of cockroaches with agents of vertebrate diseases are of more 

 immediate importance than their relations with pathogens of lower 

 animals or with nonpathogens. On the other hand, cockroaches are of 

 general economic as well as medical importance, and their control is 

 sought by many who are unaware of their medical significance. That 

 the control of domiciliary cockroaches is far from satisfactory may be 

 inferred from current entomological and pest-control journals in which 

 new insecticides are continually advocated to replace others found to 

 be inadequate. Possibly new approaches to the control of cockroaches 

 are needed. Whether these lie in the direction of increased use of 

 parasites and predators for the biological control of these insects 

 remains to be seen. In any event, the more we know about any insect, 

 especially its ecology, the greater the likelihood of achieving satis- 



1 Part of the cost of publication of this monograph was borne by the Office of 

 Naval Research, Department of the Navy (through the American Institute of 

 Biological Sciences), and by the Quartermaster Research and Engineering Cen- 

 ter, Department of the Army. 



2 Present address of both authors. Central Research Laboratories, United Fruit 

 Co., Upland Road, Norwood, Mass. 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 141 (WHOLE VOL.) 



