Bed Bugs: The Best Bite you can possibly ask for?
Most people would cringe at the thought of a little blood-sucking parasite, quite literally crawling out from the woodwork to feed on you while you sleep. But the bed bug is probably the most innocuous hematophage this side of your duvet.
Getting bitten by bed bugs is nothing new - they have a long evolutionary association with humans. One bug was found during an excavation in an ancient Egyptian village dated 3,500 years old - but the love/hate relationship probably goes back much further than that. Yes, even before the Milton Bradley board game.
Bed bugs are also found in nesting birds and mammals, especially bats. It's in these climate-controlled quarters where the bed bugs are assured free room and board. The bugs live in cracks in rocks and mud, squeeze between sticks, grass, etc. and await their big home-town buffet of hosts to settle in for a sleep. Humans too made (and still make) nests in caves or fashioned dwellings that would have plenty of hiding places for the little vampires.
Bed bugs feed on humans at night when we sleep. They are found everywhere humans are, including hotels. As stated in the National Geographic video below the bugs secrete an anticoagulant for obvious reasons and an anesthetic so as not to not wake you. Using heat-seeking sensors in their antennae, they find a blood vessel close to the skin surface and feed with a beak that swings out from under their thorax. Sometimes they try to tap into a few different locations - but always in a straight line. This is a sign that you've been bitten by a bed bug: looks like a series of mosquito bites arranged like Orion's Belt. And yes, I have been bitten.
The scientific name of the bed bug that relies on human hospitality is Cimex lectularius. This was named by Linnaeus way back in the 1700s and was probably a bit more common household inhabitant back then as it is now - or at least we'd like to think so. The name "bug" originates from the description of this creature's nocturnal behaviors. A "Bugbear" or "Bugger" for example are old English terms used to describe and unseen someone or something that silently creeps in our bedrooms to violate you in some way - a much more frightening or awful act than the actual creature that just takes a few drops of blood before disappearing into the floorboards.
So why is the bite of the bed bug the best bite you can possibly ask for? They are the only known blood feeder that does not transmit any diseases. That's right ticks, mosquitoes, black flies, stable flies, horse and tse tse flies, other true bugs, etc., etc. all feed on blood and all transmit or themselves cause traumatic or deadly diseases. Scientists aren't quite sure why they don't. But one thing is clear - although feared especially by children of Victorian England the bed bug should perhaps be the most desired unwanted pest of all the little jointed-legged Nosferati.
Getting bitten by bed bugs is nothing new - they have a long evolutionary association with humans. One bug was found during an excavation in an ancient Egyptian village dated 3,500 years old - but the love/hate relationship probably goes back much further than that. Yes, even before the Milton Bradley board game.
Bed bugs are also found in nesting birds and mammals, especially bats. It's in these climate-controlled quarters where the bed bugs are assured free room and board. The bugs live in cracks in rocks and mud, squeeze between sticks, grass, etc. and await their big home-town buffet of hosts to settle in for a sleep. Humans too made (and still make) nests in caves or fashioned dwellings that would have plenty of hiding places for the little vampires.
Bed bugs feed on humans at night when we sleep. They are found everywhere humans are, including hotels. As stated in the National Geographic video below the bugs secrete an anticoagulant for obvious reasons and an anesthetic so as not to not wake you. Using heat-seeking sensors in their antennae, they find a blood vessel close to the skin surface and feed with a beak that swings out from under their thorax. Sometimes they try to tap into a few different locations - but always in a straight line. This is a sign that you've been bitten by a bed bug: looks like a series of mosquito bites arranged like Orion's Belt. And yes, I have been bitten.
The scientific name of the bed bug that relies on human hospitality is Cimex lectularius. This was named by Linnaeus way back in the 1700s and was probably a bit more common household inhabitant back then as it is now - or at least we'd like to think so. The name "bug" originates from the description of this creature's nocturnal behaviors. A "Bugbear" or "Bugger" for example are old English terms used to describe and unseen someone or something that silently creeps in our bedrooms to violate you in some way - a much more frightening or awful act than the actual creature that just takes a few drops of blood before disappearing into the floorboards.
So why is the bite of the bed bug the best bite you can possibly ask for? They are the only known blood feeder that does not transmit any diseases. That's right ticks, mosquitoes, black flies, stable flies, horse and tse tse flies, other true bugs, etc., etc. all feed on blood and all transmit or themselves cause traumatic or deadly diseases. Scientists aren't quite sure why they don't. But one thing is clear - although feared especially by children of Victorian England the bed bug should perhaps be the most desired unwanted pest of all the little jointed-legged Nosferati.
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Are they the same thing as chiggers? I recall reading something about this when i lived in Savannah. It said that before people had mattresses Savannahians would stuff their beds with the spanish moss that grew on the live oak trees. The moss contained chiggers and they would get bit at night. They referred to them as bed bugs.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Chiggers are larval Trombiculid mites and are not even insects. Also, they are not found in Spanish Moss. You make me want to post on this topic. I think I shall. Thanks, Tina!