Symploce ruficollis
Virgin Islands, St. Croix.—Under rubbish and on shrubbery at night (Beatty, 1944).
Puerto Rico.—In siftings from sea-grape thicket on sandy soil (Rehn and Hebard, 1927). Often living under leaf-sheaths of sugarcane (Wolcott, 1950).
Tartaroblatta karatavica
Asia, Kara-tau Mountains.—Many hundreds of individuals found only under stones on moist earth and not where ground seemed dry; found on very stony slopes with sparse vegetation, often with undergrowth present (Bei-Bienko, 1950).
STRUCTURAL HABITATS
In this category we include all man-made structures, whether inhabited by man or not, that may become infested with cockroaches. A nonexhaustive list of such structures would include dwellings, restaurants, mess halls, barracks, groceries, markets, bakeries, dairies, drug stores, department stores, hotels, hospitals, warehouses, mills, factories, packing houses, animal houses, breweries, incinerators, privies, sewers, sewage treatment plants, ships, aircraft, etc. Although dwellings are only one of the many kinds of structures that are colonized by cockroaches, the several species that have adopted this mode of life are generally referred to as domiciliary cockroaches. This term is adequate only if we remember that these cockroaches are not restricted to domiciles but are pests in other structures as well.
Associations between man and certain species of cockroaches possibly started as casually as the short-lived association that Beebe (1953) observed when he discovered three cockroaches in the newly built couch of an orang-utan. Obviously, when man came down from the trees, his fellow travelers found his cave dwellings and other abodes particularly favorable habitats. From such primitive beginnings, domiciliary cockroaches have spread into every kind of structure that man has since devised. We predict that when man develops a suitable vehicle, cockroaches will someday accompany him into space. Yet despite the apparent predilection of certain species of cockroaches for man, man is only incidental to these associations. Only the shelter and food that man unwittingly provides for these unwelcome guests attract cockroaches to him; man's physical presence is unnecessary.
Most, if not all, of the common domiciliary cockroaches apparently originated in the Tropics or sub-Tropics from whence they have spread, through normal commercial channels, into most of the inhabited world. At least eight domiciliary cockroaches originated in Africa (Rehn, 1945): Blatta orientalis, Blattella germanica, Leucophaea maderae, Nauphoeta cinerea, Oxyhaloa buprestoides, Periplaneta americana, P. australasiae, and Supella supellectilium; and, perhaps, Periplaneta brunnea as well; Neostylopyga rhombifolia was probably of Indo-Malayan origin; Pycnoscelus surinamensis was of oriental origin; and Leurolestes pallidus was endemic in the West Indies (Rehn, 1945). Princis (1954a) rejected Africa as the original home of Blatta orientalis and advanced reasons for placing its origin in Central Asia.