First entomological inventory of Forest Cockroaches of Bouira Region (Northern Algeria) Premier inventaire entomologique des blattes forestières de la région de Bouira (nord de l’Algérie)

Cockroaches play an important role in ecosystems. In natural environments, such as forests, they feed on organic mater, such as dead leaves and par-ticipate in their decomposition. In this work, we carried out an inventory of the cockroaches which live in the area of Bouira in Algeria, more precisely in the Fedj Dirrah pine forest and the El Meghnine pine forest in order to identity and quantify them. We also conducted a study of the natural habitat of forest cockroaches in these pine forests. The results demonstrated the presence of five species belonging to the Blatellidae family distributed over three genera ; the species are : Loboptera decipiens , Loboptera ovolobata , Dziriblata ste-noptera , Phyllodromica trivitata and Capraiellus panzeri . Loboptera decipiens is the most abundant species with a percentage of 58.78% and it is clas-sified among the regular species (i.e. common). The results obtained from the study of the natural habitat of forest cockroaches showed that organic mater, mineral mater and organic carbon are the principal ecological parameters indicating the presence and activity of the Blatellidae in these forests. Therefore, the results obtained indicate that this environment is rich in species (cockroaches), and that these environments are favorable to the survival of forest cockroaches.