Jaysus Kee-riced! A HUGE flying cockroach

[LizW]

just plopped down on the desk not one foot away from me!

I jumped back and it got away before I could grab something to smash it with!

I need to get a cat.

[Taverner]

1. You must live in Thailand

those suckers grow to 2 inches sometimes....

[KoKo]

2. We had the biggest flying cockroaches I've ever seen here in NC this

Summer. Global Climate Change...I'm telling you these weren't your normal Southern big flyers...these ones were 4 inches long! I've never seen anything like it..

The only help was they are slow because they are big. My cats were afraid of them...they were so big.

They kept coming in from my screened porch through the open door where the cats come and go. I finally made the porch "off limits." Cats weren't happy but having those flying roaches chasing my cats was too much.

I think there's a new breed. But, I don't know where you live so it may just be here in NC that this stuff with flying roaches that big is going on.

I hate them....I have to call my hubby to kill them because I'm afraid they will fly on me...ugh...disgusting things..

[LizW]

8. And killing them is disgusting

because they're so big they squirt huge amounts of roach guts all over. :shudder:

[Starlight]

17. LOL, I had them when I was in LA .

I hated to kill them. It was like squishing a rat or something. Guts everywhere. Very traumatic. :scared:

[LizW]

12. Climate change -- I think you're onto something

We never used to see Palmetto bugs this far north in Alabama. Likewise, we never used to see armadillos. Those were much further south, down below Montgomery. But gradually, over the last fifteen years or so, I've seen more and more armadillos even up into north Alabama.

The weirdest thing of all is that I've lately noticed Spanish Moss on a tree in a neighbor's yard. You NEVER used to see that until you got way down in south Alabama and Mississippi.

And don't get me started on the freaking fire ants. Early fall is apparently the season for them now. All along the sides of the highways are hundreds of mounds. I never in all my childhood saw that, and I grea up in the country.

[KoKo]

36. Yes...there's definitely something going on. Never had this before.

And, they are huge! They don't really look quite the same as the "Palmetto Bugs" I grew up with as a kid in Coastal SC either. Those were faster and slimmer. What was coming in from my porch this Summer is like nothing that was ever in my part of NC before and bigger than the big ones in SC...although they have grown larger than when I was a kid.

Maybe it's a cross between a South American breed? Climate change is causeing "cross territories?" So the big ones are slower and fatter because they are a crossbreed?

[rppper]

21. your cats are cowards...florida has palmetto bugs by the thousands

and my cats eradicate hundreds yearly.....they have more fun "pack" hunting those suckers than a cat should be allowed to have. nothing bug like gets out of this home alive...my 3 inside cats are just to bored to let it happen, and god help them if they make it to the garage, where my little grey momma cat and her kitten lie waiting for anything from palmetto bugs to rats...and they eat what they kill, not just bat them around.....

[LizW]

3. Nope, southern US

We get the flying ones here sometimes, but not so much as they do down in Florida. This son of a gun was at least two inches.

Now I can hardly stand to sit here, wondering where the heck he crawled off to.

[Taverner]

6. Crikey! You don't need a cat, you need a LIZARD!

That's what I had in Thailand - "Jim" was his name, and the guy cleaned up all the roaches in seconds flat.

Used to sit with me while I read too...cool lizard.

[redqueen]

30. Awwww

What kind of lizard?

I'd like an iguana, but I don't think it would work out since we already have cats.

[Taverner]

31. Not sure what kind

Thailand is overrun in lizards (being all the bugs to eat and all) and this guy came in and parked in my house. I started to throw him (her??) the bugs I'd sweep up each day and eventually he wasn't threatened by me, and let me pick him up and hold him (and he'd lie by me when the sun shone through my window on me.)

He was about 8 inches from tail to snout and could open his mouth REALLY big.

I'd like an iguana too someday, but my dogs probably would get too hungry..."HEEEEERE LEEEZARD LEEEZARD..."

[blindpig]

32. Tokay Gecko

absolutely just the thing. They usually max out at about 10-12". Very pretty but psycho-savage, it's amazing how much blood they can let.

[Taverner]

33. Wasn't a tokay...

Those are big and mean...this guy was a lot smaller and never bit. Stood a little more upright than the tokay too...

[Melodybe]

9. They bother the hell out of me in MS, yuck my least favorite thing on

earth, second only to Bushco.

[Philosophy]

4. Palmetto bug

Huge flying cockroaches that live here in south Alabama and throughout Florida too I think. I've seen at least 5 of them in my filthy apartment just this week - each close to 3 inches long. A few months ago I even accidentally ate one in my cereal.

[JCMach1]

22. The largest I ever saw in FL was closer to 6 inches

crawling out of a sewer in St. Augustine one night...

Yuck!

[vajraroshana]

5. scary...

We had them when I was a kid and lived in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Of course I was little, and everything seems big when you're little, but I swear I remember some that were as big as a mouse.

[texas1928]

7. You should see the ones around the University of Texas at....

Arlington. First time one landed on me in the dark I nearly hurt myself and everything around me. I nearly flipped over. The sidewalk at night would move in front of you.

[CO Liberal]

13. The Biggest Flying Cockroach Of Them All

Source: http://www.allhatnocattle.net/

:-)

[miss_kitty]

10. What are those big fuckers in NOLA?

shit I was down there one summer and they are screaming all night and slamming into your face all evening long if you step outdoors-can't think of the name....

[miss_kitty]

18. I'll answer my own question

since #4 did. Palmetto bugs

[HEyHEY]

11. You didn't even see if it had something interesting to say?

[Kat45]

14. Eeeuuw! But my friend in NZ has described REALLY huge insects.

Can't remember the details, but he told me about one that was in his house that he said sounded like a blow dryer and was about that big, I think--I think they called them whoo-hoo bugs or hoo-hoo bugs, something like that. (At least the local 'nickname' for them.) One of his cats, an avid hunter, was chasing it.

But I also looked up another bug down there, which IIRC is the largest insect in the world. I forget what it was called, but I think there was even an 'armoured' version of it.

[pansypoo53219]

15. shit.

i am staying north of the mason dixon line.
i will take the snow. you can keep your nasty bugs.
ick poo ack ack.

[texas1928]

16. Yeah the Helicopter sized skeeters might carry you away.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

19. I saw a couple here in MD this summer, too

Not huge ones...just slightly larger than average size German cockroach; but definitely flying. It used to be that we'd only see them in Florida, when we visited our grandparents.

More proof of global warming.

[KoKo]

37. In Maryland! Something's definitely up, then.. Sheesh...I feel sorry if

they get that far North...

[GoddessOfGuinness]

38. I have a feeling they're hitchhikers

and can't survive the winters here...yet.

[KoKo]

39. Let them freeze their "butts off" in Maryland then....they are disgusting.

:D

[Taverner]

20. Did it look like this?

[kick-ass-bob]

29. My cat kills those daily.

They drop into our house waaaaaay too often.

[sleipnir]

23. Technically ALL North American cockroaches can fly.

Most choose to run, if frightened. Their speed is absolutely mindblowing and is the first response for most of these insects. Though, some will choose to fly at any point, mostly to get around when they're not panicked or excited.

An odd side note, cockroaches are not indigenous to North America. Most scientists and historians believe that they were transported here in the holds of ships during the slave trade, in the 1700's, as the N.A. roach is clearly a descendant of the African variety. So, all the roaches we see are a nice "fuck you" from the people we abducted from Africa.

[Baja Margie]

24. I've never seen a really huge flying one

like that, but last night I killed a really big spider. He had an ant body and red legs and man he was big, big, big. I probably shouldn't have killed him, but he was in the laudry room & I was afraid he would get into the clothes and bite someone.

Get this, at night, we go out with the flashlight and "bust widows".
There are tons of Black Widows here, they come out at night.

[LizW]

26. Crap!

I don't even like to think about that. I kill ALL spiders, I don't discriminate. (Well, except grandaddy longlegs.)

Roaches are disgusting, but at least we don't have to worry about them biting.

[pgreenstone]

25. How about a scorpin?

I had a big fat scorpion crawl up the wall next to me at my computer the other day. Those suckers are tough.

[LizW]

27. Ick. Hate those too.

We don't have them much here, but I have seen them once or twice.

[Brewman_Jax]

28. Big waterbugs

aka Palmetto bugs. They appear on my parents' deck on summer nights. Nasty flying things. The cats have too much fun crunching those. I just say, "Good kitty cats! Please, don't feel the need to share the leftovers with me." x(

[yellowcanine]

34. Did you get the registration number on the underside of the wing? You

should definitely report this to the FAA - unsafe operation of an aircraft.

[MADem]

35. Jamaica, MON!!!

Yu fine some MASSIVE ones down dere, mon!!!