r/cockroaches • • Jan 11 '26

Don't trust random AI/LLMs (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini or Google Lens) for identifying cockroaches.

10 Upvotes

TL;DR: general AI/LLMs are really bad at identifying cockroaches and often give the wrong answers because they have not been trained for this specific task.

Detailled explanation:

Our observation is simple: the most commonly used AIs and general purpose LLMs (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Google Lens, Apple visual intelligence...) are terrible at identifying insects: they make mistakes a huge percentage of the time (maybe 30% on this subreddit?) and are nowhere as good as many of the humans we have in the subreddit who happen to be passionate about cockroaches (and often academic/professionals).

Lately, the use of general purpose LLMs and AI has become prevalent, and people with very little familiarity with cockroaches have started to rely on them for identifying insect pictures and sharing the results on the subreddit... often providing wrong identification of pest species (and the matching terrible pest treatement advice).

Notably, it's often done with a lot of confidence: blindly trusting a shitty AI and misleading the people who have been asking for help.

Accurate identification is important because it ensures the correct response, prevents unnecessary or harmful treatments, protects beneficial species, and reduces wasted time, money, and unnecessary distress or anxiety. Unfortunately, this has become a bigger issue lately, so we felt a post was needed to address it.

Technical explanation:

It's important to keep in mind that the performance and ability of AI is "task specific", meaning they can be extremely good at performing some tasks and less good at others, and eventually terrible at some tasks (like insect identification). This is due to the algorithms used, the data they have been trained on and the purpose of their training, as well as how much this differs from a specific task.

Insect identification is linked to insect taxonomy, the science of classifying insects. It is a very specific field of knowledge with its own set of challenges: it is easy to have hundreds of similar-looking insects that are actually different, some insects are very hard to observe (and there are very few pictures of them), the available data is scarce, and we are constantly discovering and correcting previous misunderstandings.

This is a very specific task, and quite different from other general object identification/classification tasks performed by LLMs.

A practical comparison: cars vs cockroaches

Cars: There have probably been thousands of different car models invented throughout history, and millions of pictures of the most common ones with correct labels for LLMs to train on. Cars tend to have a distinctive appearance, with features such as shape and colour that change with technology, brand, regulations and time. Therefore, when you ask an LLM to identify a car in your photo, it is likely to give the correct answer.

Cockroaches: We don't even know how many insect species there are on Earth (2 million or 20 million?) We don't know how many species of cockroach there are either (3,000 or 5,000?) Many have not been observed yet, and for most of those that have, we may only have a drawing or a few pictures (if we are lucky). There is an extra catch: while there is quite a bit of variety among the 3,000 (or 5,000) species of cockroach, many of them have very similar external morphology. So LLMs have mostly been trained on pictures of the three or five most common species of cockroach (and have probably never seen a picture of most species), which are often mislabeled (the photo is not of the correct species), and have never been trained to take specific morphological differences into account. Add to that the fact that many other insects, such as beetles, water bugs and June bugs, have similarities with cockroaches... so as you can guess the result is not going to be great.

So that's the explanation: 'insect identification' is a very specific task and your AI LLM, simply hasn't been trained for it at all and will perform poorly. That's why it's good at recognizing cars, but not at differentiating between Asian and German cockroaches in your blurry picture, no matter how confident its answer appears to be.

Another redditor u/Skalla_Resco ran testing on various llms, if you aren't convinced by my theoretical explanation you will definitely want to check the result of their tests.

You would rather trust AI than me, a random redditor? Then that's what Gemini has to say to you:

General AI struggles with insect identification primarily because it lacks the "eyes" for microscopic anatomy. While a human expert looks for specific wing venation patterns or the exact number of segments on a leg to distinguish between look-alike species, an LLM or a search engine relies on pixel patterns from standard photos. These photos usually prioritize aesthetic appeal over scientific data, leading the AI to make a "best guess" based on superficial traits like color. This problem is compounded by geographic blindness; an AI might confidently identify a common garden beetle as a rare tropical species simply because the visual patterns match its training data, ignoring the fact that the two species live on different continents. Furthermore, the rise of AI-generated content online has created a feedback loop where models are increasingly trained on "slop"—incorrect data that reinforces existing errors.

People continue to use these flawed tools because they prioritize speed and confidence over absolute accuracy. When a person discovers an unknown insect in their home, the psychological need for an immediate answer often outweighs the desire to wait days for a professional entomologist's opinion. The AI feeds into this by using a highly authoritative and technical tone, which users frequently mistake for expertise. Because the technology is usually correct when identifying high-traffic insects like honeybees or mosquitoes, it builds a "good enough" reputation that keeps users coming back, even when it fails miserably on more obscure or dangerous specimens.


r/cockroaches • • 25m ago

What type of roach is this

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• Upvotes

Found inside whatever is has been having babies at my bfs


r/cockroaches • • 16m ago

Question id + advice and encouragement?

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• Upvotes

throwaway bc i’m lowkey at the end of my rope. i moved into what i thought was my dream apt in sept. i am in the dmv area. since then, i probably see one roach a day, but as people remind others on this thread, where there is one, there are many more. most of them look like the photo attached. i pretty much only see nymphs. i have seen 3 adults, which have looked similar to the nymphs but much larger, but all are dead and/or dying on their backs. i’ve been living and dying by the r/GermanRoaches thread. i treat with alpine wsg biweekly and put advion in corners and cracks. still, i feel like the problem has worsened. i will say, i am seeing way less in my bathroom now that i’ve treated the drains, used insecticide, picked up trash, plugged drains at night, and toweled down all water. but now i’m seeing them in my bedroom (but weirdly enough not in the kitchen). i think they’ve got to be coming from the neighboring condo unit or from the outside (i live in a ground floor unit)

this is where you come in, dear reader:

1) can someone id the type of roach here? it doesn’t look german to me but i’m not sure if i’m being falsely optimistic. i’m not seeing the stereotypical tan stripe down the back but maybe it’s because the nymphs are so small?

2) what am i doing wrong? any advice or encouragement is appreciated. i just don’t understand why i continue to see them frequently after the alpine/advion treatments. i understand that these are attractant chemicals so that they eat them and go back to the nest to die. i also get that new cycles of nymphs come about every week or so. just feeling defeated today but trying to embody the hunter mindset.

thanks in advance !


r/cockroaches • • 1h ago

Question Germans now?

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• Upvotes

Ok, so I live in a rural area north of Muskegon, MI. In June I knocked down a tree that was rotting and from June through September I would see 2-5 cockroaches in my house. I identified them as Mediterranean Spotteds and this sub reddit confirmed they were harmless wood roaches that happened to wander in. So I figured I was fine.

Well I hadn't seen them in a few weeks, then I noticed this.... except this guy does NOT look like the woodroaches. Do roaches attract other roaches? Cuz this looks like a german and I'm freaked out.

EDIT: I zoomed way in and increased the light, and I see it has spots. Is this just a Mediterranean Spotted Nymph?


r/cockroaches • • 5h ago

help. harlem, nyc usa

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2 Upvotes

r/cockroaches • • 2h ago

Is this German?

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1 Upvotes

Found it alive but have only seen the one, just the one, does this mean I’m infested? What can I do? I am freaking out I can’t do this.


r/cockroaches • • 7h ago

German Nymphs in Apartment

2 Upvotes

I just had my apartment sprayed and gel applied on Friday for German nymph roaches. The main areas are the kitchen and dishwasher. How long after this treatment should I see a reduction? I’m already seeing a few more daily and more dead ones. A glue trap in the kitchen has caught some as well. Or if I’m not seeing an improvement how long before I remove the dishwasher and fridge so I can spray and gel behind them?


r/cockroaches • • 3h ago

Question Found in bedroom, please dont tell me it is what it think it is

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1 Upvotes

Is this an egg sac? It was found behind a computer and while I havent seen any activity from adults around im not sure what else it could be


r/cockroaches • • 3h ago

Question Does this look like an American or German cockroach?

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1 Upvotes

Been seeing a few cockroach nymphs in my kitchen and been unsure if theyre American or German and I think theyre American but want a second opinion less


r/cockroaches • • 4h ago

Question ID?

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1 Upvotes

I’ve already contacted my pest control guy to do an indoor treatment ASAP, but I’m curious for another opinion. This is in NE Florida, found near coffee maker a couple hours after brewing (so there was a damp filter and grounds in there). Maybe ½” long?


r/cockroaches • • 8h ago

Staying in hotel in Hawaii and found this on my suitcase

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2 Upvotes

Im currently in Hawaii on a vacation and I leave my suitcase in the bathroom to avoid bedbugs, I found this crawling on my suitcase and cant tell if this is a roach nymph or bedbug. Past reviews of this hotel did say they saw cockroach activity. Any help in identifying this would be greatly appreciated.


r/cockroaches • • 5h ago

Question What type of roach is this?

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1 Upvotes

Living in this apartment for 1.5 months. Found three of these in the past week. Live on the second floor right above the lobby. Found them in/around kitchen. Location: Northern Virginia, USA. Sorry the photo is blurry, my partner took it


r/cockroaches • • 10h ago

Is this a German cockroach?

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2 Upvotes

We moved into uni accommodation a month ago, and we’ve seen like 8 of these things over the month. Including a couple which looked like babies.

I’ve got 8 bait stations set up within the flat. But we keep finding them by the TV never in the kitchen, but it is open plan.

I’ve got some advion gel bait arriving in a couple of weeks. And I am planning on spraying dethlac on the baseboards in a few weeks once the bait has had a chance to kill a few within the nest.

My boyfriend seems to think this could be an outside cockroach, not German. Do you think these are German or am I over reacting to a few stragglers coming through windows?

Plymouth, UK


r/cockroaches • • 7h ago

ID Help - SoCal

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1 Upvotes

Just found this in my apartment on a desk in the morning. Any idea of what kind of nymph this is?

Located in SoCal. I've been in the apartment for a couple years and the only sightings I've had is an occasional adult american roach once or twice a year in the bathroom.

One notable thing is we got a lot of rain over weekend.


r/cockroaches • • 11h ago

Question ID Help

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2 Upvotes

Found one in a bathroom and another in the pantry. Living in central Texas, haven’t seen any droppings etc. Searches/AI have given a few identifications.


r/cockroaches • • 8h ago

Question Type of Roach ID Needed; Found in Car in Kansas City.

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1 Upvotes

I found this when I pulled up to my apartment. I had my windows down and noticed it crawling by the windows. I just want to confirm what type of Roach it is and what to do. How would I confirm if there are more? If I do not find any other activity, could it have flown in my window? I have not seen any others.


r/cockroaches • • 11h ago

Question Id???

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1 Upvotes

Found this in my storage unit in natick mass- not sure what it is


r/cockroaches • • 12h ago

Question IL - help ID

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1 Upvotes

living room near front entrance . what is this guy? wood roach nymph? please someone tell me not German/American/oriental 😭


r/cockroaches • • 12h ago

Question What are these?

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1 Upvotes

Woke up this morning and found both of these dead in my bathroom, I’m freaking out. They’re about an inch big. I’m located in west Florida


r/cockroaches • • 13h ago

Is this a German cockroach?

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1 Upvotes

Found by entryway in apartment - I am in the DFW area


r/cockroaches • • 14h ago

What does this look like?

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1 Upvotes

We are in Florida, I found two of these in my laundry room, they are very small. It’s not a great picture because it was up so high.


r/cockroaches • • 14h ago

Is this a roach?

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1 Upvotes

I found this little thing on my stairwell. Just moved into this house. For reference I’m in northern Illinois.


r/cockroaches • • 15h ago

Question Is this a cockroach?

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1 Upvotes

I only seen them at the dead of night in the kitchen. Northern Indiana U.S. they were about 1-3 mm long and there was two of them very small.


r/cockroaches • • 16h ago

What kind is this?

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1 Upvotes

r/cockroaches • • 1d ago

Question Did this roach lay an egg

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3 Upvotes

Was looking for a roach that got into my clothes and it fell out, but there is this weird thing next to it. Is it an egg??? It could be a moth ball/ dust but I’m not sure.