The Surinam cockroach or greenhouse cockroach The front edge of the pronotum (head shield) has a pale white band. While males are rarely produced, male adults have longer wings than females, completely covering the abdomen,
Nymphs are around long at birth, translucent white with orange-brown mandibles and spines, and darker eye spots than the rest of the head. It can be spread to greenhouses with shipments of tropical plants. It has a relatively high rate of cutaneous water loss compared to non-burrowing species of cockroaches, and is nearly exclusively associated with moist soil across its range.
Pest
While the species is occasionally found inside homes, it is not a common household pest. It is thought to be transferred into homes and businesses in potted plants or mulch used for potted plants.
Optional thelkytokous parthenogenesis occurs in several cockroach species when females are isolated from males, including in the common domestic pests Blatta orientalis, Blattella germanica, and Periplaneta americana, but in P. surinamensis it is obligatory parthenogenesis, its sole means of reproduction. Earlier taxonomy treated P. surinamensis as a species with both sexual and asexual forms, reproducing asexually in some populations, but sexually in other populations.
P. surinamensis has at least 21 diploid clones, born independently from sexual females, meaning the thelytokous parthenogenesis has evolved repeatedly. can cause eye problems ranging from mild conjunctivitis to severe ophthalmia and serious vision impairment in its final hosts, which include chickens, turkeys, guineafowl and peafowl. Its life cycle involves eggs passing through a bird's lachrymal duct, being swallowed and passed in the bird's feces, a P. surinamensis cockroach eating the feces, larvae emerging in the cockroach, the bird eating the cockroach, and finally the eye worm larvae migrating up the oesophagus and pharynx to the bird's eye.