Florida checking in – palmetto bugs aka big ass roaches that fly

Edit: Quite jealous of all the regions that seem to have an absence of roaches

36 comments

  3. Western Washington checking in – we don’t really have roaches very much here.

  4. Palmetto bug too. But I hear people call them stinkbugs or Florida woodies, but in Georgia where I live now, stinkbug is a completely different bug lol

    Funny how that works

  5. I call them “roaches” unless they are in my house and then I call them “AHHHHHHHHH JESUS FUCKING CHRIST”

  7. I’ve always called them (and heard them called) “cockroaches.” Not “roaches” or anything else, but the full word.

  9. The big flying ones (“American Cockroach” officially, although they’re actually an introduced species) are sometimes called “Pine Bugs” here.

  10. Cockroaches. We don’t really have them, so we don’t have a nickname for them.

  12. Usually just roaches or cockroaches. ‘Bastards’ is also common in my apartment, lol. Hate those fucking things.

  13. The big brown ones are Palmetto Bugs or Water Bugs.

    The little orange ones are Roaches.

    Big difference.

    Palmetto/water bugs are everywhere, no matter what. You could hermetically seal a metal box, let it sit for a few days, and when you opened it there would be a palmetto bug in there.

    Roaches were generally only around dirty places.

  14. New England here.

    I think I’ve only seen one once in over 50 years here.

    We don’t talk about them much so we don’t have nicknames.

  15. Don’t really see them in Maine but people would call them roaches/cockroaches.

    I always thought palmetto bugs were just a specific species of cockroach?

  16. Roaches or cockroaches.

    Texas mostly.

    Although, my Grandmother will call giant fucking roaches running around her house “water bugs” but they’re roaches.

  17. Water bug but that’s only because we can’t tell them apart. Not sure if this is just my folks in an isolated case or not

  20. Roaches or cockroaches. I didn’t have the big brown ones growing up. We had small tan ones called field roaches.

  21. Roaches. What else would you call them?

    I looked it up and there are 7 different species in NJ. I’m not an entomologist, so they’re all “roaches” to me.

  22. “Little fuckers”

    See also:

    “Little bastards”

    “Nasty fuckers”

    “AHHHHH”

    and “Palmetto bugs” if they fly

  23. Cockroaches or Water bugs (used incorrectly/interchangeably) seem to be the common terms here in North Alabama.

  26. I’ve only seen them once and I didn’t even know what they were at first because the only other roaches I saw were the Madagascar hissing cockroaches at the zoo and I thought they all looked like that. Just roaches I guess because nobody ever sees them.

  28. I use both terms. The smaller absolutely disgusting ones are roaches. The large ones found farther south are Palmetto bugs.

  29. If it’s in a house worth $500,000 or more it’s a palmetto bug. The rest of plebes have roaches.

  30. A fellow Floridan dragging the noble and mighty Palmetto Bug into the gutter where lowly cockroaches dwell?

    For shame!

    But yeah. Palmetto Bugs are what you’d get if you mixed Arnold Schwarzenegger with a cockroach and as many steroids as you can find. They’re the Florida Man of the insect world.

  31. Abominations of nature that must be cleansed through holy flame.

    Just roach for short.

  34. Southern California

    I call em roaches but if they fly I call em Pine bugs idk why an if they’re in like pipes or sewers Waterbug…

  36. It gets cold here in the winter and kills all that shit. Only roaches in northern IL would be gross indoor German roaches.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like