They are insects that must crawl to get places. Bed Bugs cannot fly but this doesn’t mean that they can’t go into your home by hiding into your clothes or pets, or by simply coming in through the front door. Their small flat bodies allow them to easily hide and squeeze into tiny spaces.
Bed Bugs can Survive Different Climates, from 45° Celsius to about -10°
The common bedbug is a small (less than half a centimetre in length) parasitic insect that requires blood for survival, with a strong preference for humans. They are an extremely hardy little bug, and can easily survive different climates, from 45° Celsius to about -10°. This makes life in your cozy home a very, very easy life for them.How Bed Bug Feed
Bedbugs feast in a nightmarish way. They can go for as long as 1 year without eating, but when it is time to eat, bedbugs aren’t shy about it. Mostly they come out at night, after hiding during the day and help themselves to their host’s blood for up to five days at a time. They are attracted by carbon dioxide, so a sleeping human is the perfect prey. When they find their human host sleeping, they insert a feeding tube into the skin and inject a chemical to make the blood easier to suck. Then, like a little surgeon, they pierce the skin with a second tube to draw blood out. They feed for about 5 minutes, then they return to their hiding spot, fat and engorged.Why Are They Called “Bed” Bug?
Bedbugs don’t need to live in beds, but beds provide a safe and cozy hiding place for them during the day, where they can wait for their prey (that’d be you) to come home. Beds have spaces for bugs to multiply and lay the eggs safely.Since they generally feed with blood when their host (human being) is asleep, beds are convenient. However, bedbugs can live basically anywhere in your home. They prefer to stay close to the human’s sleeping place and that’s your bed.
Who’s Blood Do They Like?
As mentioned, bedbugs prefer human blood. However, they have been known to feed on bats , livestock and other mammals when need be. This means that children and babies can be affected as well, and even pets if the bedbugs are hungry enough.Life Stages of Bed Bugs
Female bedbugs lay roughly 200 eggs in a lifetime, so about 3 or 4 a day eggs on average. The eggs are small (1 mm) and are coated with a sticky residue that clings to anything.Once eggs hatch, a young bedbug, called a nymph, must feed right away. They are immature until 5 months, when they begin to moult and become an adult. At this point they are sexually mature and can reproduce constantly throughout the year if the climate is good (and an indoor climate is perfect for putting bedbugs in the right mood). Depending whether the climate is favourable, they can live to be over a year old.
The information about bed bugs that I have researched, collected is to help the growing numbers of bed bug sufferers.