Other Physical Features: ectothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Cimex lectularius is common in both tropical and temperate habitats. Temperature is important in their lives; hatching, nymphal development, and adult activity all occur between 13 and 15 degrees celsius.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; tropical ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: taiga ; desert or dune ; savanna or grassland ; chaparral ; forest ; rainforest ; scrub forest
Other Habitat Features: urban ; suburban ; agricultural
Cimex lectularius has been found on all continents except Antarctica. It is absent in large areas of east Asia due to the fatal effects of males of a different species, Cimex hemipterus, mating with C. lectularius.
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native ); palearctic (Native ); oriental (Native ); ethiopian (Native ); neotropical (Native )
Other Geographic Terms: cosmopolitan
Cimex lectularius is primarily parasitic on man. They also live on bats, chickens, pigeons, other birds, and labratory animals. Originally, Cimex lectularius infested bats. When they are not feeding on their host they usually remain in their nests or in cracks in rooms or roosts. They usually react negatively to light, but they will feed in daylight when hungry.
Primary Diet: carnivore (Eats body fluids)
Cimex lectularius have been suspected to transmit desease in humans and bats, but in most cases this has not been verified. Controlling bed bugs has been a challenge to people for centuries.
Bedbugs are not threatened, they persist in human and animal populations throughout the world.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
The number of species subsumed under the name Cimex lectularius is uncertain. Characters that suggest that more than one may be present include the HW/3rd antennal ratio, bristle length, paramere ratio, and number of supernumerary X chromosomes. Cimex lectularius have been known to humans since the beginning of recorded history and have played a role in folklore, pharmacopoeia, and literature.
A male can mate with one or more females more than once in a day. Males do not recognize females from a distance, and they may try to mate with other males, dead females and a piece of cork shaped like a bed bug. Males that have starved longer than two weeks do not mate, and females who have not fed recently are not ready for mating. Males puncture female's body wall and inject sperm into her abdomen. The egg is asymmetrical in shape and has pink eye spots. Most of the egg's surface is faintly reticulate, especially near the cap end.
Typical places where bed bugs hide and breed. Includes mattress and surrounding areas where you may find bed bugs (Cimex lectularius).
Produced by UF/IFAS Entomology and Nematology Department
Visit us at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu
Source: UFEntomology's YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/UFEntomology Uploaded on Sep 16, 2010
These are closeup shots of laboratory bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) in action: crawling and feeding.
Produced by UF/IFAS Entomology and Nematology Department
Visit us at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu
Source: UFEntomology's YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/UFEntomology Uploaded on Jan 27, 2011
Founded in 1996 by Thomas Fasulo, Featured Creatures provides in-depth profiles of insects, nematodes, arachnids and other organisms.
The Featured Creatures site is a cooperative venture of the University of Florida's Entomology and Nematology Department and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Division of Plant Industry.
Visit Featured Creatures at http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/
Quick demonstration of a bed bug treatment using a heat box to enclose infested furniture on site. Treats bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) without chemicals.
Produced by UF/IFAS Entomology and Nematology Department
Visit us athttp://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu
Source: UFEntomology's YouTube channel athttp://www.youtube.com/user/UFEntomologyUploaded on Sep 16, 2010
The two species of bed bugs (Hemiptera: Cimicidae) usually implicated in human infestations are Cimex lectularius and C. hemipterus. Humans may also rarely become incidental hosts of Cimex species that normally fed on bats and birds. Although C. lectularius has a cosmopolitan distribution, C. hemipterus is limited to the tropics and sub-tropics.
The bed bug Cimex lectularius is a member of the family Cimicidae, a group of true bugs that are highly specialized for feeding on blood, mainly that of humans, birds, and bats. All these hosts occur in temporally and spatially predictable, gregarious assemblages in or around enclosed spaces such as caves or buildings and all have a relatively high body temperature. Cimex lectularius has been closely associated with humans for thousands of years (it is one of several cimicid species for which humans are the primary host). Despite this close association, however, it survives well on bird, bat, and rabbit hosts in the laboratory (in fact, it produces more eggs, and the hatched nymphs develop faster, when reared on mice, a host rarely encountered in nature) and has been found in the wild on several different bird and bat hosts. Nymphs of C. lectularius die within a few days of hatching if they do not feed and egg production ceases soon after adult females are prevented from feeding. Cimicids all mate by traumatic insemination, during which the male pierces the female’s abdominal wall (see Reproduction). (Reinhardt and Siva-Jothy 2007 and references therein)
There appears to have been a dramatic increase of C. lectularius in the developed world--notably in North America, Europe, and Australia--beginning in the 1980s or 1990s, particularly in hotels. Reinhardt and Siva-Jothy (2007) suggest that although these increases are facilitated by cheap air transport and increased travel, they are probably exacerbated by the disappearance of folk knowledge of these insects in the developed world. For example, most people under age 50 in the developed world have no ability to recognize (e.g., by smell) bed bugs and to take early measures to control infestations of these insects. (Reinhardt and Siva-Jothy 2007 and references therein) Another important factor in the recent resurgence in bedbug infestations in human dwellings seems to be the widespread evolution of resistance to commonly used pesticides (Romero et al. 2007).
Adults and all nymphal stages of Cimex species need to take blood meals from warm-blooded hosts, which are typically humans for C. lectularius and C. hemipterus, although other mammals and birds can be utilized in the absence of a human host. Female bed bugs lay about five eggs daily throughout their adult lives in a sheltered location (mattress seams, crevices in box springs, spaces under baseboards, etc). Eggs hatch in about 4-12 days into first instar nymphs which must take a blood meal before molting to the next stage. The bugs will undergo five nymphal stages, each one requiring a blood meal before molting to the next stage, with the fifth stage molting into an adult. Nymphs, although lacking wing buds, resemble smaller versions of the adults. Nymphs and adults take about 5-10 minutes to obtain a full blood meal. The adults may take several blood meals over several weeks, assuming a warm-blooded host is available. Mating occurs off the host and involves a unique form of copulation called ‘traumatic insemination’ whereby the male penetrates the female’s abdominal wall with his external genitalia and inseminates into her body cavity. Adults live 6-12 months and may survive for long periods of time without feeding. (Centers for Disease Control Parasites and Health website)
Efforts to improve the reliability and efficiency of bed bug detection have led to the more widespread use of dogs trained to detect bed bugs. Pfiester et al. (2008) investigated the effectiveness of well trained dogs in bed bug detection. Dogs learned to detect as few as one adult male or female bed bug or five viable bed bug eggs. The authors found that the dogs were able to discriminate bed bugs from carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus), cockroaches (Blattella germanica), and termites (Reticulitermes flavipes) with a 97.5% positive indication rate (i.e., correct indication of bed bugs when present) and 0% false positives (i.e., incorrect indication of bed bugs when not present). The dogs also were able to discriminate live bed bugs and viable bed bug eggs from dead bed bugs, cast skins, and feces, with a 95% positive indication rate and a 3% false positive rate for bed bug feces. In a controlled experiment in hotel rooms, dogs were 98% accurate in locating live bed bugs. Chemically extracted bed bug scent was recognized by trained dogs as bed bug scent in 100% of trials. The use of such "pseudoscents" could facilitate training and periodic testing of detector dogs.
Passive dispersal is the most important route by which wingless cimicids reach new hosts. Bed bugs can be transported by humans in clothing, luggage, and furniture. They may be unknowingly transported by people traveling by foot, car, train, ship, and airplane. (Reinhardt and Siva-Jothy 2007 and references therein) Bedbugs disperse easily within and between human dwellings. Wang et al. (2010) investigated a bedbug infestation in Indianapolis, Indiana (U.S.A.). They found bed bugs hiding in electrical outlets, in corners of ceilings, and behind baseboards on the floors. Bedbugs may migrate between apartments via walls or ceilings as well as by traveling between apartments through their front doors, as was documented repeatedly by Wang et al. Wang et al. found that half the residents in infested apartments were unaware of their infestations. These residents were either not sensitive to bed bug bites or mistakenly attributed bed bug bite symptoms to other causes. Five hundred and fifty-one bed bugs were trapped in one apartment within a 4-week period. The resident in this apartment was a frequent traveler (>4 travel days per week) and was not aware there were bed bugs in the apartment. Another resident used a bed bug-infested wheelchair in the building's common areas on a daily basis and was regularly visited by social workers and friends in his apartment, even though he was aware of the bed bug infestations.
Female bedbugs may take blood meals that are greater than 300% of their unfed weight. Male mating success is highest when female resistance is lowest, i.e., during feeding. Males prefer mating with inflated females and this is so whether they are inflated naturally with a blood meal or experimentally inflated with air (in these experiments, artificially inflated females reportedly return to their original size within less than 2 days). During mating, the male mounts the female without any apparent courtship and positions himself on her back. He then lowers the tip of his abdomen, from which a sclerotized, needle-like intromittent organ is expanded. This organ is pushed through the female body wall, the penis is guided through the intromittent organ, and sperm are ejaculated into a secondary female genitalic organ called the spermalege. This unusual copulation method is known as "traumatic insemination". The spermalege is entirely distinct from the primary female genitalia, the vagina, which is never used in mating but functions in oviposition (Reinhardt et al. [2003] argue that the spermalege evolved as a female adaptation to reduce costs imposed by pathogens introduced during traumatic insemination). Within 2 to 6 hours of copulation, the sperm emigrate from the spermalege into the female hemolymph and migrate through the female oviduct into either the ovaries, where they fertilize the eggs, or into a secondary storage organ, the seminal conceptacles. (Reinhardt et al. 2009 and references therein) Females receive approximately five traumatic inseminations (not necessarily from the same male) per blood meal, which is about 20 times the insemination rate that would maximize their lifetime reproductive success. This higher insemination rate results in females suffering reduced longevity without a compensatory increase in egg-laying rates. Thus, females mate at a rate that is harmful to them, suggesting some degree of coercion by males. The explanation for the association between number of mating events and reduced longevity is uncertain but is likely related at least in part to the unusual mode of copulation. (Stutt and Siva-Jothy 2001)
Goddard and deShazo (2009) reviewed the literature on human health impacts of bed bugs. Although bed bugs have at various times been suspected of transmitting dozens of human diseases, there is little evidence supporting these beliefs. Reaction to bed bug bites is generally very minor or nonexistent, with no more than a barely visible puncture evident at the location of the bite. A variety of skin reactions (often itchy) may be seen (and an individual's reaction may worsen with increased exposure), but these symptoms normally resolve with no treatment within a week. Systemic reactions appear to be rare.
Despite the fact that bed bugs appear not to be disease vectors, bed bug infestations cost many millions of dollars annually in detection and control efforts by the hotel industry, the poultry industry, and private and communal households. Complex consequences resulting from bed bug infestations on poultry farms include loss of productivity due to allergic reactions of workers, reduced egg value due to bed bug fecal spots, reduced egg production from affected chickens, and increased feed consumption. (Reinhardt and Siva-Jothy 2007 and references therein)
Cimex lectularius is a species of Cimicidae (bed bugs). Its primary hosts are humans, and it is one of the world's major "nuisance pests".
Although bed bugs can be infected with at least 28 human pathogens, no studies have found that the insects are capable of transmitting any of these to humans.[1] They have been found with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)[2] and with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE), but the significance of this is still unknown.[3]
Investigations into potential transmission of HIV, MRSA, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and hepatitis E have not shown that bed bugs can spread these diseases. However, there is some evidence that arboviruses may be transmissible.[4]
Bed bug bites or cimicosis may lead to a range of skin manifestations from no visible effects to prominent blisters.[5] Effects include skin rashes, psychological effects, and allergic symptoms.[6]
Cimex lectularius is found all over the world in almost every area that has been settled by humans. In the past, bed bugs were particularly an affliction of the poor and occurred in mass shelters. However, in the early part of the modern resurgence it was the tourist areas that were impacted. Today, bed bugs have conquered quite diverse locations, ranging from hospitals and hotels, to trains, cruise ships and even airplanes. Most commonly, bed bugs travel as stowaways in luggage, although they can be transferred via furnishing and other belongings, as well by spreading to adjoining properties. Since there are no mandatory reporting requirements, exact figures on the occurrence of bed bugs are unknown and, due to the stigma often associated, many infestations are simply not reported.[7]
If feeding regularly, a female bed bug can lay between two and three eggs per day throughout her adult lifetime, which may last several months, allowing one female to produce hundreds of offspring under optimal conditions. The tiny (<1 mm) yellowish-white eggs are vase-shaped and are laid within harborages where the insects rest between blood meals and spend virtually all of their time: although parasitic, they do not reside on their hosts and only contact them briefly for blood meals. Eggs typically hatch within 10 days at room temperature, but become non-viable below 14 °C (57 °F). Cimex lectularius goes through five immature life stages that each require a blood meal to develop and move on to the next stage. The life cycle occurs more rapidly at warmer temperatures, and more slowly at lower ones. Once the egg hatches, the larval form must take one blood meal per week as it completes each of its five to six molts. Once it completes the final molt, it will have reached the adult stage and can reproduce. Meals take several minutes to consume, and occur only under the correct conditions: darkness, warmth, and carbon dioxide. C. lectularius typically feed on hosts when they are asleep, they tend to feed exclusively on humans, and are obligate blood feeders. Newly hatched nymphs must consume a blood meal within two to three days or will die of starvation, whereas an adult can live for as long as six months between feedings.[8]
Parasitic life style and blood feeding is characteristic of both adult sexes as well as the larval stage. They live at night and during the day they hide in wall crevices, under wallpaper, in furniture grooves, books, clothes, beds, electronics, in darkened and warm places, in bird and animal cages; however, they can also attack during the day if they are very hungry. Bed bugs do not have a nest of sorts, as ants do, but they tend to congregate in safe places near a food source. These places can be visually identified by dark patches of insect excrement, along with which their eggs and larval exuviae can be found. Bed bugs live well in most areas, regardless of their state of sanitation. Bed bugs emerge from their shelter in the dark and attack (suck blood on exposed parts of the body), usually at 3-8 a.m. Bed bugs feed exclusively on blood.[9]
The average lifespan of bed bugs is one year; the maximum is up to 14 months. In the absence of food, bed bugs may go into a state similar to anabiosis, in which, at sufficiently low ambient temperatures, they remain viable for more than one year. Females are capable of laying around 200 eggs in a few months.[10] In unfavourable conditions, bed bugs are able to migrate between rooms along ventilation ducts and, in summer, along the outside walls of houses. An adult bedbug travels more than 1 m in one minute, while a nymph travels up to 25 cm.
Bed bugs have an excellent sense of smell and drink blood during all phases of development. The larva has to drink a full portion of blood to pass on to the next instar; only then can another molt take place. The first instar larva drinks about 1/3 mg of blood per blood-sucking session; subsequent instars respectively more; the adult female drinks up to 7 mg.[11] Usually feeds regularly every 5-10 days, mainly on human blood, but may also attack pets, birds, rats and mice. In rural areas, they often crawl from infested poultry houses to households.
Cimex lectularius is a species of Cimicidae (bed bugs). Its primary hosts are humans, and it is one of the world's major "nuisance pests".
Although bed bugs can be infected with at least 28 human pathogens, no studies have found that the insects are capable of transmitting any of these to humans. They have been found with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE), but the significance of this is still unknown.
Investigations into potential transmission of HIV, MRSA, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and hepatitis E have not shown that bed bugs can spread these diseases. However, there is some evidence that arboviruses may be transmissible.
Bed bug bites or cimicosis may lead to a range of skin manifestations from no visible effects to prominent blisters. Effects include skin rashes, psychological effects, and allergic symptoms.
