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Atlas / Library / Blaberidae / Death's head cockroach
BeginnerNocturnal · sleeping now
Blaberidae

Death's head cockroach

Blaberus craniifer

Narrower than the page we cite. The source we cite, read on 10 Aug 2026, gives a wider range than the one above. The narrowing is ours and nobody here has written down why. invertebratedude.com

Photograph: Acrocynus · CC BY-SA

Photographed by an observer on iNaturalist and published under a Creative Commons licence; the photographer and the licence are named under the image. It is not an animal of ours, and no animal was handled by us to produce it.

14:00
Day

Drag the sun. Death's head cockroach is nocturnal, so what it is doing changes with the light.

Burrowing · warm · middlingFrom the sheet: 26–30°C, humidity 50–70%

The way of life is written in this sheet, word for word. The climate words summarise the two figures above them, they do not add to them.

National law is not global, and we hold no national wildlife law for any country, Thailand included. Check your own authority before buying or selling.

Back to the globe My keep

https://keepr.pet/husbandry/en/blaberus-craniifer

‹ All husbandry guides
Temperature26–30 °C
Humidity50–70 %
Diet2–4 days

The numbers

Temperature

152025303540 °C
26–30°Ambient

One ambient band, 26–30°C. This sheet states no warm side, no cool side and no night figure, so none are shown. Same scale on every sheet here, so two species compare by eye.

The sheet states26-30C

Humidity

50–70%Target RH

The sheet states50-70%

Enclosure
20-30L bin, good ventilation; can climb as nymphs - barrier + tight lid

Identity

Adult size

1.75 m5–6 cm
1520100400 cm
5–6 cmNose to tail, adult

The size the sheet states for a grown animal.

Why

Two drawings, because they answer two questions. The silhouette is at true scale against a 1.75 m person: it says how big this animal actually is, which no number does for someone who has never seen one. The bar under it is logarithmic and shared by every sheet here, so a 2 cm isopod and a 4 m python both stay readable on the same axis and two species can be compared at a glance.

Order / Family
Blattodea
IUCN / CITES
Not evaluated; CITES not yet in our data
Difficulty
Beginner–Intermediate
Commonality
Common display roach; skull-like pronotum mark
Adult size
Body 50-60mm; broad, winged (rarely fly)
Lifespan
1-2 yrs
Growth rate
Moderate
Activity & niche
Nocturnal detritivore; burrows/hides
Temperament
Docile; harmless
Venom / defense
Harmless - no bite/venom

Enclosure and conditions

Temperature
26-30C
Humidity
50-70%
Min. enclosure
20-30L bin, good ventilation; can climb as nymphs - barrier + tight lid
Substrate
Coco/peat 5cm (they burrow); egg-crate/cork hides
Hides / decor / water
Egg flats, cork bark; water crystals or moist veg

What your climate adds

This sheet states a range to hold. Your local climate decides how much work holding it is. Pick the nearest city: nothing is sent anywhere, the choice stays in this browser.

Diet

Feeding rhythm

every 2.3–3.5 dAs the sheet states
12Meals in 28 days

Twenty-eight days, one row. Each band is a meal window.

Why

The windows widen as they go because the interval is a range: four meals after a 10–14 day cycle land anywhere between day 40 and day 56.

The sheet statesVeg/fruit + grain/protein dry feed · 2-3x/week; remove uneaten

Staple food
Veg/fruit + grain/protein dry feed
Feeding frequency
2-3x/week; remove uneaten
Supplements
Protein for breeding; gut-load if feeder

Behaviour and handling

HandlingDocile; handleable
CommunalColonial - keep in groups
Defense / stress signsBurrowing, scattering, musty odour if stressed

Reproduction

Life course

Day 0Hatch
1–2 yrLifespan in care
1 yrMinimum commitment
Sexual maturityNot in our data

Read from the lifespan and maturity the sheet states, for animals in care and not in the wild.

Why

The minimum commitment is the low end of that lifespan, and the reproductive window is what is left after maturity: both are subtractions on stated figures, not figures of their own.

Reproduction
Ovoviviparous (live-bearing); large broods

Common health problems

Common health issues
SignsMould, mites, dehydration
Red flags / quarantine
SignsNymphs climb - barrier; quarantine for mites; never release

Good to know

  • The black pronotum bears a pattern often read as a skull or bat face

What it needs

A thermometerbecause temp26-30C
A hygrometerbecause humidity50-70%
Not stated: The size of the enclosurethis sheet describes the enclosure without a figure: « 20-30L bin, good ventilation; can climb as nymphs - barrier + tight lid »

Every line above is deduced from a value this sheet states, and names which one. Nothing here is a general recommendation. What the sheet does not state is listed too, rather than left out: a kit that looks complete is worse than one that names its gap.

Sources

Others in this group

What this sheet states

100%
TemperatureHumidityEnclosure sizeActivityOriginDietSourcesUVB

Every field this product runs on is stated here. That is not a claim that the values are right: it says what the sheet states, not whether it is true. Whether a human has read it is the badge at the top of this page.

UVB is measured but does not count: it is absent from 421 of 678 sheets, and on most of them that is not a gap, since a nocturnal snake's sheet has no reason to state a UV index. Counting it would call the library incomplete without cause.