It still helps to know where you can find them, especially since a female American cockroach will hatch about nymphs in her lifetime, and German cockroaches can produce thousands of cockroaches a year. To get an infestation under control, it helps to understand the cockroach life cycle and breeding habits. A cockroach has three life stages — the egg, the nymph stage and adulthood. The cockroach nymph stage begins when the egg hatches and lasts until the cockroach baby reaches adulthood.

Few insects are as unwelcome in homes as cockroaches. If they get into food, they contaminate it with their feces and the disease-causing bacteria they carry on their bodies. But once they find a home they like, they settle in and reproduce so quickly that getting rid of them can be very difficult. Entomologists -- scientists who study bugs -- have classified more than 4, species of cockroaches. In the US, the four species most often found indoors are the German, American, Oriental and brown-banded cockroaches. After mating, female cockroaches deposit their eggs in a hardened oval capsule called an ootheca. When the eggs are almost ready to hatch, the mothers of most species either drop the egg case close to a food source, or use secretions from their mouths to glue it to a suitable surface.

By: Tracy V. As with many animals, cockroach reproduction relies on eggs from a female and sperm from a male. Usually, the female releases pheromones to attract a male, and in some species, males fight over available females. But exactly what happens after the male deposits his sperm into the female varies from species to species.

Category: Roach Control. You were finally getting around to cleaning the garage, a task that was more than overdue. Decorations were still out from several holidays. A bunch of boxes had been broken down but somehow never made it into the recycling bin. Things were going pretty smoothly, until you started moving the broken-down boxes and a swarm of cockroaches scattered in all directions.