Q: I’ve recently come across small, brown bugs that look like cockroaches in my home. What do roaches look like? Could I be dealing with a different type of bug? While cockroaches can seem like just a ...

It’s also possible to identify a roach by what it leaves behind. Roach droppings resemble grains of pepper for smaller species; for larger species, the droppings are smooth, with pointy ends.

Using genetics to identify the origin and the global path of the ubiquitous insect pest, the German cockroach, back to its wild origin could help us develop more effective pesticides to control them.