More Than 100,000 Illegal Exotic Cockroaches Were Seized by Australian Authorities in a Record-Setting Bug Bust
The insects are estimated to be worth up to $141,000 USD, according to Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water. Exotic cockroaches could harm the country’s wildlife and agriculture
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Australian authorities say they have seized more than 100,000 live cockroaches from a single breeder, marking the country’s largest-ever bust of illegal exotic invertebrates.
The confiscated bugs, including Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, are estimated to be worth up to $200,000 AUD, or about $141,000 USD, according to a June 5 statement from Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW). The creatures are being euthanized by New South Wales’ Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development Biosecurity Collections.
“We’re putting pet businesses and pet owners on notice,” a DCCEEW spokesperson says in the statement. “If you are found to possess, breed or trade exotic cockroaches … they will be seized, and you could face penalties under federal law.”
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Authorities did not reveal the name of the culprit, sharing only that they seized the insects from a commercial breeder located in Bathurst, New South Wales. No charges have been filed in connection with the incident, report Emily Middleton and Lani Oataway for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Australia allows only certain live plants and animals to be imported into the country. Authorities have not performed an environmental risk assessment for Madagascar hissing cockroaches or dubia cockroaches, so the creatures cannot be legally imported, kept, bred or sold in Australia, no matter how they were obtained.
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“Their presence in Australia may spread disease and harm native wildlife and agriculture,” according to the statement.
Madagascar hissing cockroaches are among the largest cockroaches in the world. The creatures are typically two to three inches long and can weigh nearly an ounce, about the same as an alkaline AA battery. Dubia cockroaches are slightly smaller, measuring a little over one and a half inches long.
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Stefanie Lesser, a snake catcher in Bathurst, tells the ABC she has seen the exotic cockroaches being marketed online as reptile food.
“They are big; they’re sort of like the size of your palm of your hand,” she says. “They probably are cost-effective. Rather than feeding each lizard three or four [Australian wood cockroaches], which are quite small, you could only give them one [exotic cockroach].”
However, in the statement, authorities urge reptile owners who have been using the exotic creatures as pet food to switch to legal alternatives, such as crickets and wood roaches, known as “woodies.”
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Carol Booth, policy director at the Invasive Species Council, an Australian environmental advocacy organization, applauded the bust, telling the Guardian’s Lisa Cox that exotic cockroaches represent a “massive” biosecurity risk to the island nation.
“Not just because these foreign cockroaches could establish in the wild and threaten native cockroaches and other insects, but because they could introduce new diseases,” she adds.
Did you know? Australian cockroach species rediscovered after nearly a century
In 2022, researchers in Australia rediscovered a cockroach species that was presumed to have gone extinct on the main island of the Lord Howe Island archipelago in the 1930s due to the arrival of rats. They found families of Lord Howe Island wood-feeding cockroaches—wingless, metallic-looking creatures that feed on rotten logs—at the base of a single banyan tree.
Australia has more than 400 native species of cockroaches, including some pale, blind and wingless species that live in caves, according to the Australian Museum. Most are not serious urban pests and instead spend their time in trees chowing down on pollen, bark, leaf material and decomposing wood. They play a crucial role in the food web of many Australian habitats, serving as a source of calories for other invertebrates, reptiles, frogs and mammals.
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