North Carolina’s cockroach fauna remains relatively unknown and certainly under-appreciated. We’ll cover the small yellow cockroach, Cariblatta lutea (Saussure & Zehntner, 1893) (Blattodea: Blattellidae), this week, which has to be the cutest blattodean found within our state.

This cockroach species was originally described as Ceratinoptera lutea by Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure and Leo Zehntner in 1893, based on what had to be several specimens. The original description, reproduced below from the Smithsonian’s fantastic Biologia Centrali Americana (the original series of books that included this species description) website, refers to specimens collected in Georgia and Louisiana. A syntype specimen is located at the Natural History Museum in London. In 1916 Morgan Hebard described a new genus of cockroaches, Cariblatta , which he named after the Carib people of, oddly enough, the Caribbean region. He reassigned lutea to this new genus, and so we now have the name Cariblatta lutea (Saussure & Zehntner, 1893). There are currently two subspecies: lutea and minima Hebard, 1916, which is found in southern Florida.

This is likely the tiniest cockroach in North Carolina, and, as its common name suggests, it is largely yellow in color. As paraphrased from Hebard (1916): Subgenital plate symmetrical, with two styles that look like rounded knobs, with dorsal surface thickly covered with minute spines. Median portion of distal margin of subgenital plate very broadly rectangularly produced. Tegmina and wings normally moderately reduced. Tegmina immaculate (i.e., without any markings). General color of pronotal disk buffy, very finely pictured, this picturing normally strongly defined. Buffy general coloration always tinged to varying degrees with cinnamon. Like many cockroach species, C. lutea is sexually dimorphic, with females having much shorter wings than males.

One can usually find this species in leaf / grass / pine needle litter in the forests of the southeastern USA, where it undoubtedly feeds mostly on decaying matter. Females encase their eggs inside a protein envelope and deposit these egg packets (called oothecae) soon after their formation. The ootheca of C. lutea is a candidate host for Hyptia floridana. Very little else is known about this species’ natural history. One specimen in the Hebard collection was apparently collected from “rubbish.”

Coastal plain of the southeastern USA, from North Carolina to Florida, west to Louisiana. The species is also found in Cuba. The oldest specimen in the NCSU Insect Museum was collected by F. Sherman in Lake Ellis, Havelock, NC between 19-24 June 1905.

• Hebard, Morgan. 1916. A New Genus, Cariblatta_, of the Group Blattellites (Orthoptera, Blattidae). _Transactions of the American Entomological Society 42 (2): 147-186
• Lawson, F. A. 1952. Structural features of cockroach egg capsules. II. The ootheca of Cariblatta lutea lutea (ORTHOPTERA: BLATTIDAE). The Ohio Journal of Science. 52 (5): 296-300
• Cariblatta lutea. Blattodea Species File page.
• Cariblatta lutea (Saussure & Zehntner, 1893) species page at GBIF: http://data.gbif.org/species/13760049/