Yuck! Found a fast crawling bug on the kitchen floor. Picture of the critter dead in my toilet is found here:
www.geocities.com/wagar91/index.htm
Might it be a cockroach?
That is not like any cockroach I have ever seen…
I’m no entomologist, but…
It’s almost certainly not a cockroach. Looks like some sort of fly (order Diptera), I think.
Neither am I an entomologist. But it looks like a roach to me. Check out the flat, segmented abdomen and the lonf antennae. The head looks like the ones on some kinds of roaches I’ve seen.
Having seen a few squished roaches in my day I’m going to say roach. Coackroaches do have non functional (I think) wings that generally stay tucked away.
Head and legs look right, wings resemble some cockroach wings I have seen, body looks probable despite obvious deformity. Description of a high speed crawler makes a solid confirmation for me. I can’t think of many other high speed crawlers that look like that
Looks like a roach dude.
It appears to be the notorious 404 bug.
You’ve never been to New Orleans, have you? 
'fraid it is.
Why am I getting the idea that the dock defense scene in Matrix Revolution was inspired by children with BB guns shooting at Louisiana giant flying cockroaches.
Take that! POP,POP,POP.
and that POP,POP,POP,POP.
too many of them…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Thanks for the replies. Regarding the wings, they sticking out due to the trauma that surrounded its death. It didn’t look like it had wings when it was scurrying across my white-tiled kitchen floor.
Anyway, the extermination for the building came by and put some gel around the edges of the floor. He said he didn’t see any evidence of an infestation. So, it was a rogue roach. Now it’s a dead roach. R.I.P.
A related question:
“Look, it’s a cockroach.”
“No, it’s a water bug.”
Why do people call cockroaches “water bugs”? (Note, I am not talking about water boatmen or other aquatic insects.) I know that roaches often live in wet environments, but why not call a roach a roach? Is it because finding a “water bug” in your house is more acceptable than finding a “cockroach”?
Definitely a cockroach, most likely a German Cockroach, one of several introduced species found in the U.S.
Some household cockroachs, such as the German and American, have functional wings. Others, like the Oriental, do not.
Is it true that for every one that you see, there’s about two hundred more hiding somewhere in your walls?
rogue roach. Tee hee. I think they call those “scouts”. Or maybe forward observers.
Here people like my mother swear they’re palmetto bugs. Madam, I know a giant flying cockroach when I see one.
Heh. The wife and I were in Maui one time at a local restaurant, and this tiny bush next to our table was CRAWLING with them. They were the flying kind as well. When I asked the waiter if we could be seated away from the swarming cockroaches, he said “Oh, those are potato bugs.” So I said, “Oh. Can we be seated away from the swarming potato bugs?”
its a roach. a german roach like Colibri said.
in new york they have the big black nasty ones from what i have seen. i lived inboston for 20 years and the only roachs i saw were the small brown ones like in your photo.
i never saw a big black nasty one
Kansas Man’s photo looks like a roach, for sure. But Colibri’s? I don’t know. Hmmm.
Peace,
mangeorge
Fine, I’ll accept defeat gracefully. I’ve never seen a roach like that, though.
I’ve noticed this as well. It seems to be an L.A. phenomenon. I’ve seen some enormous roaches (three inches long, anyone?), and they were pooh-poohed away as merely “water bugs.”
They’re amazingly hardy, too. I dropped a twenty pound tote on one (flat-bottomed), lifted it, and watched the critter scurry away.
They’re called water bugs in Bakersfield, too. The large, darker colored ones. Of course, Bakersfield is itself a L. A. phenomenon.
“Dang, Ma. Ol’ Nellie’s swappin’ holes. Don’t think she’s gonna git over the grapevine.”