Cockroaches belong to the suborder Blattodea (a suborder is a taxonomic grouping of families), and are related to praying mantids and stick insects.
It may be a surprise to learn that there are native cockroaches living in the English countryside - it is often assumed that cockroaches are only native to hotter countries.
The three native UK species - the dusky cockroach (Ectobius lapponicus), the tawny cockroach (E. pallidus) and the lesser cockroach (E. panzeri) - live mainly in southern England and are much smaller than the introduced species.
Pest cockroaches, such as the oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis), were introduced into England before the sixteenth century. In 1607, Dr Muffet - whose daughter was immortalized in the poem Little Miss Muffet - gave one of the earliest descriptions of pest cockroach species in a book called The Theater of Insects (see the thumbnail image)
