Watch out everyone, there’s a new cockroach in town and it doesn’t mind the cold. A new species of cockroach called Periplaneta japonica has found its way to New York and it has adapted to survive the cold New York winters putting native cockroaches at risk.

The new cockroach species is native to Japan, but has recently migrated to the United States. It is not uncommon for insects to travel to different countries in boxes and other transported items. Once a few are able to establish themselves, the species can take over and in some cases, threaten the native species.

The different species will compete for food and shelter and if necessary, will fight and try to destroy each other to improve the survival of their own species. Another possibility is that the two species would interbreed and create a hybrid species that would inherit the traits of both species, making it harder to kill and making cockroach infestations more common and severe.

Scientists are studying the new species and trying to determine if it will be able to survive and establish large populations within the United States. The scientists are also trying to determine how the cockroach came to the United States.

Very few sightings of the new cockroach species have been reported, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t millions of them out there hiding somewhere.

Image from Wikimedia Commons.