Cinereous Cockroach

Cinereous Cockroach

Nauphoeta cinerea

Daily sighting probability <5% · Rare
at Sydney

In 3 days ~10% in a week ~20%

5 Verified sightings at Sydney
5 In 1 park From 2019 to 2026
October Best month
☀️ Diurnal When it's spotted

About the Cinereous Cockroach

Nauphoeta cinerea, the speckled cockroach, lobster cockroach, or (small) cinereous cockroach, is a species of cockroach in the family Blaberidae. It is the sole species in the genus Nauphoeta. This species was originally described by French entomologist Guillaume-Antoine Olivier in 1789 as Blatta cinerea. In 1838 Hermann Burmeister established a new genus for this species, Nauphoeta, giving it the current binomial name Nauphoeta cinerea. It is the sole species in this genus.

Nauphoeta cinerea is mottled brown, alate at maturity, and can reach up to 30 mm in length. Nauphoeta cinerea is originally from north-eastern Africa, within Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, and Sudan. However, due to its association with humans, especially a tendency to stow away on ships, this species has achieved an invasive circumtropical distribution that includes parts of Madagascar, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Hawaii (United States), Mexico, Cuba, the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador), and Brazil.

A female can produce around six broods in a lifetime, with each ootheca taking around 36 days to incubate... Wikipedia →

Global Distribution

Parks Where Found

# Park Country Daily sighting probability
1 Kruger National Park 🇿🇦 South Africa
<5%

More parks will be added in future updates.

Cities Where Found

# City Country Daily sighting probability
1 Sydney 🇦🇺 Australia
<5%

Before you go

What are the chances of seeing a Cinereous Cockroach in Sydney?

Rare

Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Cinereous Cockroach sighting in Sydney on a given day, based on 5 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 666th most-seen of the 742 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 20%, if each day is a fresh chance.

When is the best time to see a Cinereous Cockroach in Sydney?

Any time of year

In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Cinereous Cockroach in Sydney on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.

What time of day is best to see a Cinereous Cockroach?

Between 4 and 7 am

Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Cinereous Cockroach sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.

Where else can you see a Cinereous Cockroach?

Only Sydney, in our data

Sydney is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Cinereous Cockroach sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.

Where does the Cinereous Cockroach sighting chance come from?

GBIF citizen-science records

It is estimated from how often the Cinereous Cockroach is recorded against all the insects logged in Sydney (5 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.

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