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Roach
Blattella germanica
The small, light-brown cockroach species responsible for nearly all kitchen-pest cockroach infestations worldwide — fast-breeding, hard to eliminate, and the bane of restaurants and apartment buildings.
If you've been searching for insects that start with R, you'll find 3 detailed insects below. We're not interested in giving you only a list of names — every entry on this page links to a full profile with the kind of detail you'd actually want to know.
For insects, that means taxonomy, habitat, diet, life cycle, and ecological role.
Table of contents
| Roach | Robber Fly | Rove Beetle |
List of Insects That Start With R
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Robber Fly
Family Asilidae (various genera)
The apex predators of the insect world — powerfully built flies that hunt other insects on the wing, seizing prey mid-air with spiny legs and injecting a paralysing venom, then sucking the prey dry; they tackle prey larger than themselves including wasps, bees, and dragonflies.
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Rove Beetle
Staphylinus olens
A large family of beetles with characteristically short wing covers that expose most of the abdomen — the most species-rich beetle family, playing crucial roles as predators, scavengers, and even ant-colony infiltrators.
About insects starting with R
That's our current list of insects starting with the letter R. We add new entries every week — if you have a favorite insect starting with R that isn't on this page, let us know and we'll write it up.
Looking for more? Try insects that end with R, or contain R anywhere in the name.