Bed Bugs Distribution

Battling the Distribution of Bed Bugs

Bed bugs are insects that do not have wings. They are roughly shaped oval. They measure, once fully grown, from four to five millimeters long.

You might find the next piece of information unexpected, but bed bugs are fast runners.

There are easy to see on white linoleum or marble floors, but very difficult to spot on brown wooden floors. Bed bugs are rust brown in color and they even change into a deeper red brown when they finish a blood meal. This coloration makes them hard to distinguish against a wood background.

The fact that bed bugs are dorsoventrally flat (imagine tiny, tiny sting rays without the tail) assists their distribution. Since they are so thin, they can squeeze in and fit in very narrow cracks and crevices, oftenly ones that may be found on the floor.

Because of their inherited ability to hide and their nocturnal activity, bed bugs are very hard to detect.

Bed bug distribution is concerned mainly with the two major species of bed bugs that bite human beings.

First, is the common bed bug, more scientifically called cimex lectularius. This kind of bed bug is found in any crevice as long as it is around room temperature.

There is a greater distribution in Australia, but they are spreading into all temperate zones - North and South America, Europe and Asia.

May it be remote or urban, common bed bugs do not care, only as long as they are distributed to an area that provides their needs - a blood supply and reasonable temperatures - like inside your house.

Another kind of bed bugs is the tropical bed bug, or cimex hemipterus. N doubt this bed bug has had its species distributed in the tropics for a long time ago. However, it was only recently recognized by the medical entomology department.

Bed bugs are also well distributed in human dwellings, bat caves and bird’s nests. In truth, the habitats are found to be most suitable for these blood thirsty bed bugs.

Why? These are snug, evenly temperatured space. Bed bugs are distributed to these habitats because they offer consistent warmth and hosts they can feed on.

Of course, bed bugs are never evenly distributed throughout a particular living space. Bed bugs are distributed mainly in harborages.

When a human dwelling is the subject, the harborages include cracks and crevices in your house's walls and floors, in the space behind your wallpaper, in the seams of furniture and wood paneling, and even under your carpet. And, of course, bed bugs love to live in holes and tears of your mattresses. There may concern is to be distrubed as near as ;possible to their prey. And for humans, that is usually the bedroom.

Bed bugs can also be distributed to clothing, in bedding or even your luggage. Interestingly though, they do not have appendages that allow them to cling to fibers, hair, feathers or fur.

Why is this? Once a bed bug has feasted on its host, it wants to leave in a hurry. If bed bugs had appendages to cling with, they might tangled up in fur or fibers and by discovered by their hosts. Birds would eat them and humans would squash them.

Adult bed bugs live exclusively as parasites that feed mainly on warm-blooded animals - bats, birds and unfortunaly for us, human beings.

Now you know the general distribution of bed bugs, where they can be found and where they are mostly likely to hide until night time, when they come out to feed.