At around ½ inch and light brown, adult male brown-banded cockroaches, Supella Longipalpa (Serville) grow fully functional wings and are known to fly when disturbed. Shorter and stouter, adult females sport shorter wings and are not believed to fly. Distinguished by two broad, brown bands crossing their bodies, brown-banded cockroaches prefer warm, dry locations, closer to the ceiling than the floor.
As brown-banded cockroaches require less water than German cockroaches, they prefer drier, higher places. Female brown-banded cockroaches lay eggs in capsules, also called purses, that they carry around for roughly thirty hours before attaching them to out-of-the-way hiding places where vertical and horizontal surfaces meet and on walls and ceilings. In their 13 to 45-week life spans, a single female brown-banded cockroach can be responsible for 600 offspring.
