What are Bed Bugs?

Bedbugs are small parasitic insects that feed exclusively on the blood of warm-blooded animals. Bedbugs can be found worldwide. Cimex lectularius, also known as the common bedbug, plays a role in human health due to the ability to transfer pathogens. Once inside a home, an adult female bedbug can lay up to five eggs per day, reaching approximately 500 eggs over its lifetime (approximately four to six months). Bed bugs are efficient hitchhikers and can be transported into a home on luggage, clothing, bedding, furniture, etc. (while it is possible that they can also be transported on cats and dogs, they are not bioengineered to travel through fur efficiently and prefer to feed on human blood). Adult bed bugs are flat, reddish-brown in appearance with an oval shaped body (approximately the same size as an apple seed); after feeding on blood, their only primary food source, their bodies become swollen and reddish. Immature bed bugs, or nymphs, are white to tan in color and are approximately the size of the head of a pin.