Cockroach (Insecta: Blattaria) infestation of homes in selected communities in Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract

Outbreak of cockroaches in some communities in the Kumasi metropolis in recent times is be-lieved to be on a steady increase. The study was therefore undertaken to determine cockroach infestation of homes in some ten selected communities in the Kumasi Metropolitan area in the Ashanti Region of Ghana using sticky traps. Twenty (20) houses in each community were ran-domly selected for the study. A trap was set up in three areas: living room, kitchen, and bed room, for each house. Sampling was done over a period of four (4) months. Out of the two hun-dred (200) houses sampled, at least one cockroach species was captured in one hundred and sixty houses (80%). A total of 2,421 cockroaches were caught by 420 traps out of the 600 traps set. The kitchens recorded the highest number of 1,207 cockroaches (49.86%) whilst the bed-rooms recorded the least, 400 cockroaches (16.52%). Three (3) different species of cockroaches were trapped in the ten selected communities during the study. These were Blattella germanica (L.), Periplaneta americana (L.) and Leucophaea (Rhyparobia) maderae (Fab.). According to the surveys of this study, B. germanica is the most abundant cockroach species in the Kumasi Metropolitan Area, with Santasi having the highest infestation of cockroaches (15.04%) and KNUST with the least (2.31%). The kitchens were the major habitats of these insects in the sam-pled communities.