Why "undescribed" species stay that way?

[Matttoadman]

I have noticed the several pet species that have not been identified formally by science. Even the little Kenya not even a genus. What are the missing requirements to get these named? It's been a long time since my four years of a biology degree lol. I know a scientist most publish the finding in a peer review journal.....what else?

 

[Hisserdude]

Actually Orin Mcmonigle has Identified the Small kenyan roach as a Paraplecta sp. There are so many different species of roaches, and it can be quite hard to identify some of the species we have in culture, especially when we don't know exactly where they came from.

 

[Megaloblatta]

The reason why undescribed cockroach species often stay that way for a long time is that there are very few active cockroach taxonomists in the world. There are simply not enough knowledgable people and the few there are don't have the time to name all the many new species that are in museum collections - or indeed which still need to be collected. One estimate ts that there are about 15,000 unnamed cockroach species 'out there' and I can believe it.

 

[pannaking22]

It would definitely be nice for someone to come through and ID all the roaches, but I think that's going to take quite a bit of time unfortunately, especially since most people like to specialize in something more specific than an order (or suborder now I guess). All we can really hope for over time is for people to work through each family/subfamily/genus/etc. and eventually things will get sorted out.