Remember how creeped out you felt when, as a child, your parents urged you to “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!”? Probably not the most kosher way to ensure a child’s sleep, especially when you consider that bed bugs are tiny parasites that can infest your bed, furniture, clothing, or almost anywhere in your house with little bloodsuckers. No wonder that happy little jingle kept you up itching all night. And unfortunately for anyone with a real bed bug problem, researchers now believe that the little monsters are genetically predisposed to withstand incest. This means that, unlike most other beings who breed, bed bugs can mate with close relatives and continue to produce offspring that are mostly healthy. This is especially disturbing to consider for anyone who has recently dealt with a bed bug infestation, because it means that a colony can regenerate quickly and successfully, even if the breeding pairs are closely related.
Researchers have found that, with most contained bed bug populations, a single female bore the entirety of the colony. This is especially surprising because with most animal or insect species inbreeding causes an amplification of genetic defects that will eventually destroy the population. This research is important because it suggests that once a bed bug colony has been exposed to an insecticide, any survivors who resist the toxins will pass on this resistance to future offspring through inbreeding that does not weaken them, developing stronger bed bug communities.
Bed bugs are small, wingless, red insects that have flat bodies and are about one-fifth of an inch long. While they have not been known to spread disease, their bites can cause allergic reactions. If you believe you have an infestation, first check for bed bugs pics so you can identify them if you find their little corpses anywhere in your home. Their bites can cause bite marks, bumps, or red spots. They are commonly thought to live and thrive around the human bed, but you may find them anywhere else in your home. Signs that you may have a problem include blood smears on light-colored surfaces like sheets or walls, small black or brown spots which are actually bed bug feces, or egg shells and cast away skins.
Researchers are currently at work attempting to discover easier ways to identify bed bug infestations before people are bitten by them, including the use of a swab that identifies proteins specific to bed bugs that can help you begin to fight a breeding colony even if there are only a few of the critters to be found. Because bed bugs are flightless, the dense populations contained in America may be responsible for the ways in which they thrive in this country, especially if they are brought to the United States from other areas of the world.
Researchers are particularly excited about these developments because examinations of the genetic makeup of bed bugs – and possible explanations for their resistance to the usual problems inherent in inbreeding – are rare in the scientific community.
