Reproductive System

Periplaneta is dioecious, with well-developed and clearly distinct male and female reproductive systems. In the male, a pair of three-lobed testes lies laterally in abdominal segments 4-6; each gives rise to a vas deferens that opens into an ejaculatory duct via the seminal vesicles, which store sperm bundles called spermatophores, while an accessory mushroom-shaped utricular gland and a phallic (conglobate) gland also open near the male gonopore, and chitinous, asymmetrical structures called phallomeres (gonapophyses) around the opening assist copulation; there is no separate copulatory organ. In the female, a pair of ovaries lies laterally in segments 2-6, each formed of eight ovarian tubules (ovarioles) containing developing ova; the lateral oviducts unite into a single median common oviduct (the vagina) opening into a genital chamber, a pair of spermathecae in segment 6 store sperm received during mating, and a pair of collaterial glands behind the ovaries secretes the hard protective egg case called the ootheca, guided into shape by three pairs of plate-like gonapophyses acting as ovipositors. The genital pouch, formed from the 7th-9th abdominal sterna, contains a genital chamber (where …