ORIGIN OF BED BUGS

"Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite," goes the
familiar phrase. Unfortunately the statistics aren't in
your favour, because these apple-pip-sized bugs are
everywhere.
Hardly a week goes by without a news story of yet
another infestation, and yet they are relatively
understudied, says Warren Booth of the University of
Tulsa in Oklahoma, US.
Booth and his colleagues have used genetics to unveil
the origin of bed bugs. They found that there are two
lineages in Europe. They are so diverse, they have
almost split into two species.
What's more, their origin lies with bats.
The research, published in the journal Molecular
Ecology , provides the first genetic evidence that bats
were the ancestral host of the bed bugs that plague
human residences today.
Bed bugs have been around for a long time, as has their
association with humans. There are references to them
in ancient Egyptian literature, and archaeologists have
even discovered what seem to be fossilised bed bugs
thought to be about 3,500 years old .
While you sleep at night they are feeding on your
blood
A single pregnant female bed bug can infest an entire
apartment building and the creatures are able to go
through many rounds of inbreeding with no detrimental
effects at all. All they need are human hosts to satisfy
their thirst.
But in the 1950s they largely disappeared from our
homes and hotels, due to an effective pesticide
campaign. However, 15 years ago they came back with
a vengeance.
Infestations are hard to treat, as 90% of common bed
bugs now have a mutation that makes them resistant to
the insecticides, known as pyrethroids, used to kill
them.
Booth's team sampled hundreds of bed bugs from
human and bat dwellings from 13 countries around
Europe.
An analysis of their DNA showed that there was no gene
flow occurring between the human and bat bed bugs,
even though some bats lived in churches or attics and
could therefore have come into human contact.
We're living in a time where they're becoming
much more common
The bat lineage probably dates back to when bats and
humans once shared caves, says Booth. Even today it
shows much more genetic diversity than the human
form.
So different were the two that when previously bred
together in the lab, the offspring were less fertile.
While their bites are not known to spread disease, they
can cause itchy bumps and rashes not to mention the
stigma of living or coming from an infected area.
"While you sleep at night they are feeding on your
blood, you are a meal ticket for them," says Booth.
"That can lead to enormous psychological issues."
There's two types of people, says Booth: "the type that
have had bed bugs and the people that will still get
them. We're living in a time where they're becoming
much more common."