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Atlas / Library / Blattidae / Red runner / Turkestan roach (feeder)
BeginnerNocturnal · sleeping now
Blattidae

Red runner / Turkestan roach (feeder)

Shelfordella lateralisPeriplaneta lateralis · Blatta lateralis

Part of this is not on the page we cite. We opened it on 10 Aug 2026 and some of the degrees above are not stated there. The values above may still be right, but we cannot show you where they came from, and nobody here has checked them against a second source. Anything about a sick animal goes to a qualified exotic vet, not to a page. roachforum.com

Photograph: Happy1892 · 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. Red runner / Turkestan roach (feeder) is nocturnal, so what it is doing changes with the light.

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/shelfordella-lateralis

‹ All husbandry guides
Temperature28–34 °C
Humidity30–50 %
Diet2–4 days

The numbers

Temperature

152025303540 °C
28–34°Ambient

One ambient band, 28–34°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 states28-34C (loves heat)

Humidity

30–50%Target RH

The sheet states30-50% (drier)

Enclosure
Smooth-sided bin (females cannot climb glass) but MALES FLY - keep tight lid; good ventilation

Identity

Adult size

1.75 m2.5–3 cm
1520100400 cm
2.5–3 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
Commonality
Very common fast-breeding feeder
Adult size
Body ~25-30mm; males winged/fly, females wingless amber
Lifespan
~4-9 mo
Growth rate
Very fast (fastest-breeding common feeder)
Activity & niche
Ground runner; fast; nocturnal
Temperament
Skittish, very fast; harmless
Venom / defense
Harmless - no bite/venom

Enclosure and conditions

Temperature
28-34C (loves heat)
Humidity
30-50% (drier)
Min. enclosure
Smooth-sided bin (females cannot climb glass) but MALES FLY - keep tight lid; good ventilation
Substrate
Bare or thin frass; stacked egg-crates
Hides / decor / water
Egg flats; water crystals/gel

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; keep dry feed out

Staple food
Veg/fruit + grain/protein dry feed
Feeding frequency
2-3x/week; keep dry feed out
Supplements
Gut-load before feeding to reptiles

Behaviour and handling

HandlingFast - mostly a feeder, not a handling pet
CommunalColonial - very prolific; keep in numbers
Defense / stress signsRapid running, scattering

Reproduction

Life course

Day 0Hatch
0.3–0.8 yrLifespan in care
0.3 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
Oviparous: females drop oothecae (egg cases); breeds explosively in warmth

Common health problems

Common health issues
SignsFew (very hardy); mites if damp
Red flags / quarantine
SignsMales fly + can establish outdoors if escaped - INVASIVE risk; tight lid; never release; keep contained

Good to know

  • Fast, tough and hyper-prolific - the go-to feeder when you need endless roaches, but escapees can colonise warm buildings

What it needs

A thermometerbecause temp28-34C (loves heat)
A hygrometerbecause humidity30-50% (drier)
Not stated: The size of the enclosurethis sheet describes the enclosure without a figure: « Smooth-sided bin (females cannot climb glass) but MALES FLY - keep tight lid; go »

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

85%
TemperatureHumidityEnclosure sizeActivityOriginDietSourcesUVB

This sheet states 6 of 7 of the fields this product runs on. What is missing turns something off: enclosure size audit. We show the gap rather than fill it with a plausible number.

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.