What types of bedbugs are there - names and features

Many people know bugs with an unpleasant odor called “bug”.

These insects evoke a feeling of disgust, disgust, and the stench emanating from them can lead to incredible horror. In total, in nature there are many varieties of individuals that simply fascinate with their diversity - they can be variegated, multi-colored, round, square, triangular, inconspicuous, gray.

In addition, they are divided into predatory and peaceful, preferring to eat plants. But it’s still worth taking a closer look at the important features of insects and learning about their way of life.

Types of bedbugs

Bedbugs are the largest order of insects. Currently, more than 30,000 varieties are known. In most cases, the word “bug” evokes wild horror and is associated with bloodsuckers. However, not all of them cause harm to humans and some of them can even be useful. Types of bedbugs characteristic of our area:

Soldier bug

Brightly colored insect. Found throughout our country. At any time of the year, except winter, it lives in plant leaves and grass. It is not difficult to notice, since soldier bugs settle in colonies. He is unpretentious to food and is content with little. The juice of the plant, which it sucks out with its proboscis, is enough. The photo shows a representative of this species.

stink bug

It's easy to guess why it's called that. Bedbugs have a well-developed sense of smell, and in case of danger, they release their scent. Absolutely harmless to humans. It feeds on plant sap and can be found on any vegetation. It appears in the apartment in search of shelter or creeps in by accident. Looking at the photo, you will probably remember it.

Horsefly bug

It got its name because of its original eyes. It is difficult to recognize, since this type of insect has several varieties with different colors. An adult is absolutely harmless. Like previous bugs, it feeds on sap. But the larvae cause significant damage to agricultural plants. The larvae are deposited on leaves or stems and parasitize there until they mature. The photo shows one of the representatives.

bug turtle

This type of insect causes significant damage to grain crops. It is not difficult to notice it, since they live in colonies and attack vegetation in unison. During the period of formation and ripening of ears, the activity of the harmful turtle reaches its peak. Females lay eggs and larvae begin to emerge after 1 week. Throughout the entire period of their development, they will live on grain crops and cause damage to the plant.

Photo of the pest.

Forest and field bugs do not pose a danger to humans. They end up in housing by accident and don’t stay there for long.

Bed bugs ruin your life. This subspecies is a parasite. They feed on the blood of animals and humans. Home, bed, furniture, linen - these are the names of the same creature.

Differences from other species

Bed bugs are different from other insects. Green shield bugs are a bit similar to them; they live outdoors and are herbivores. Their sizes are larger - up to 2 cm.

Triatomine bugs are quite huge - 3-4 cm. The giant belostoma, or water bug, grows up to 12 cm. Bed bugs do not have such a bright appearance, they do not have wings, and they are incredibly flexible.

Bedbugs are a scourge in modern housing. To destroy them, you should be patient, or better yet, immediately turn to professionals. Only comprehensive pest control will get rid of bedbugs. The undernourished population very quickly restores its strength and numbers. The bloodsucker's shell is very strong, which is why the poison does not penetrate to the embryo. But experts know exactly which insecticide will help 100 percent.

What do house bugs look like?

Many have heard about such bloodsuckers, and those who have had to deal with them know what they look like. It is difficult to spot an insect for several reasons. Firstly, it is very small. Secondly, it is nocturnal.

The body length of a hungry bug is only 3 mm. The body is flat and almost transparent, with a brownish tint. Consists of separate segments that are able to expand as food arrives. Thanks to this, a well-fed insect changes shape - it becomes round and increases to 8 mm. Look at the photos and videos to see what home bed bugs look like

Pierces the skin with a proboscis. The small jaws have two canals. The first is for the injection of poisonous saliva with an analgesic. Thanks to this, the person does not feel the bites, and the insect eats calmly. The second one is intended for eating.

The body is covered with villi and protected by a durable shell. It is simply impossible to crush a hungry bug, even if you press hard on it. A well-fed one can be destroyed with the slightest effort.

Females are always larger than males. In the photo the female is located at the bottom.

The behavior of a hungry and a well-fed bug is very different. The first one is very fast and agile. Able to climb onto the ceiling and from there dive onto a sleeping person. A well-fed insect is slow and clumsy.

Body color depends on the time of food consumption. The hungry bug is dirty yellow in color. Recently fed - scarlet. The dark brown color indicates that the parasite has been eating for a long time. The photo shows an insect that drank human blood quite recently.

Bedbugs amaze with their fertility. One female is enough for your home to be filled with insects in 2 weeks. In a couple of months you won't know how to get rid of them. The female lays an average of 5-12 larvae per day and 300-500 throughout her life.

The eggs are white, 1 mm long and look like grains of rice. The picture can be clearly seen in the photo.

Bedbug eggs are found in one place and are easier to detect than adults. The ripening period is 1 week. They are not afraid of temperature changes and are insensitive to most chemicals.

Immediately after hatching they are able to drink blood. To start the mechanism of maturation, the larva needs to taste blood at least once. This explains the activity of insects in the first week of their appearance. Unlike an adult bedbug, they are unable to release an analgesic when bitten. Therefore, bites are felt immediately and the bedbug can be killed quite easily.

It takes 1 month to turn into a full-fledged bug. During this time, the insect changes its chitinous shell 5 times. It increases in size and darkens. Because of their transparent color, they are often called nymphs.

See the photo for the process of turning a larva into an adult bedbug.

The larva of a bed bug leads the same lifestyle as an adult. It differs in the volume of food absorbed and the number of bites made.

The insect lives for a year or a year and a half. When the temperature drops below 18 degrees Celsius, it goes into hibernation. It exists in a hungry state for six months. During this time it turns into a transparent, flat bug. Looks like he's dead. When the temperature is optimized, it comes to life and leads a normal life. They are afraid of low temperatures from – 15 ⁰С and high temperatures – from + 49 ⁰С.

Fighting methods

There is no point in waiting for the bedbugs to leave the house on their own; this will not happen. Neither cleaning nor replacing furniture will help . Not even all bedbug chemicals can cope with annoying guests, although this is the best way. Insects quickly adapt to insecticides. That's why chemical manufacturers come up with something new all the time.

Among the most popular ways to combat bedbugs are:

1. Temperature.
   Bedbugs do not tolerate extremely high or low temperatures . Powerful heat generators and industrial hair dryers are used to treat premises. The effect of hot or cold fog is based on the same property.
2. Insecticidal.
   Powerful chemicals of various forms are used for destruction:
   • gels: Forsythe.

   liquid solutions: Tetrix, Get, Tsifoks, Fufanon, Cucaracha, Executioner.

3. powders: Karbofos.
4. crayons: Mashenka.
5. aerosols and sprays: Clean House, Raid, Raptor, Combat.
6. Folk remedies.
   An excellent sense of smell prevents insects from tolerating strong odors. They do not tolerate wormwood and tansy . Bouquets of herbs help, but temporarily. They will not stop a hungry bug. Just like vinegar.

Bed bugs are not afraid of ultrasound, so you should not spend money and rely on repellers and traps in the fight against bed bugs.

To remove them at home, careful treatment of every corner of the room is required. Often, owners have to call specialized services, move out for a while, and then do general cleaning. Moreover, you need to prepare your home for this procedure. Read how to do this here.

Bedbugs reproduce quickly, feed on human blood (although in the absence of it they can be content with animals) and are very difficult to remove from a private home, much less from an apartment. After all, if you start poisoning them in one room, they may well run to another.

And after a while they will return again. When persecuting parasites in an apartment, they warn neighbors so that they take preventive measures.

In general, when choosing remedies for bedbugs in an apartment, you should adhere to one rule - use in parallel several poisons that differ in composition and method of action.

You can find an overview of the main ones presented on the Russian market here. We have also prepared a number of articles about the most effective and safe ones.

So, we talked about house bugs, their types, which are found in apartments, and showed you photos of bed bugs in apartments.

Where do bedbugs come from in an apartment?

These insects love to travel. They happily change from one home to another, and quickly adapt to new living conditions. Often people themselves help them in this, but they don’t even know about it.

• You can safely bring them into your home from guests or bring them back from vacation.
• Buy furniture infested with bedbugs. Not only consignment furniture can be infested with bedbugs, but also completely new furniture.
• Place furnishings in your home from the place where the insects lived. Before you bring anything into your home, it is advisable to inspect it.
• A pet can bring a bedbug into your apartment.
• There are times when they appear in the house thanks to birds and bats.
• Cracks in the walls and ventilation hatches open the way for insects from neighbors. In 1 minute, the bug crawls more than 1 meter. Capable of covering a distance of 30 meters. If there is an apartment with bedbugs in a multi-storey building, then there is a chance that they will appear everywhere.

Bedbugs are active at night. When visiting an infected premises during the day, you can rest assured that they will not move to you. In bright light, insects hide in secluded crevices and disguise their existence. If you had to spend the night in such a room, then during this time the female will have time to lay eggs in the folds of her clothing or settle there herself. By bringing them into your home, you will start a new population of bedbugs.

Bedbug nests in the photo

Actually, bedbugs do not form organized nests like wasps and especially ants. They simply hide during the day in the most suitable places, and since there are much fewer such places in the room than there are bedbugs themselves, these parasites can accumulate in huge quantities in the most comfortable shelters. In these places there are the bugs themselves, both adults and nymphs of all ages, eggs, remains of the chitinous covers of the larvae, excrement, and in general they look very unpleasant.

For example, here is a typical bedbug nest on a sofa upholstery:

And here the video shows the same accumulation, only on a blanket, which is generally atypical for bedbugs - they prefer to settle on stationary surfaces that are not disturbed by people:

Here is another place for bedbugs to hide, rest and breed, which completely covered one side of the mattress on the bed:

The largest such “nest” that we saw caught the eye of exterminator Kostya in an apartment near Moscow - it was about 80 cm in diameter and was located in the sofa. It is difficult to say how many parasites there were in it, but the sight was, to put it mildly, repulsive.

By the way, this is what a cluster of small larvae looks like right on the mattress:

It was precisely these young individuals that the students we have already mentioned mistook for some strange spiders. But they were definitely sure that these were not bedbugs.

Such hiding places cannot be called nests, because there is no organization or order in them. For example, in the nests of wasps, termites or ants, strict order reigns: the queen lays eggs, the workers look after her, the brood, the nest itself, obtain food, and protect the nest from enemies. All this is not present in bedbug clusters:

• There is no queen that lays eggs alone - all adult females lay them;
• There are no individuals who would maintain order here - everything in such a shelter accumulates spontaneously, complete disorder reigns here;
• The nest is not protected in any way by anyone, and when it is opened, some of the bugs try to run away, the other part hides, hoping that they will not be noticed;
• There is no hierarchy in such a cluster. Bedbugs simply accumulate here, spend daylight hours here, reproduce and die here.

By the way, you have probably already noticed that almost everywhere in such places of accumulation you can see black dots that look like balls. You probably already guessed what it is...

How do bedbugs bite?

Bed bugs crawl out to hunt at night. The most favorable time for them is from 3 to 8 o'clock. The bug pierces the skin with its proboscis and releases an analgesic, thereby numbing the process. They do this until they come across a capillary with blood. See photo.

Eating in a larva lasts 3 minutes, in an adult insect – 8-10 minutes. Having had enough, the bug moves away to the side. The effect of the analgesic ceases after 15 minutes. The person begins to feel severe itching. However, the insect had already crawled away during this time.

Proven method!

In order to detect bedbugs in time during bites, you need to turn on the light suddenly and lift the blanket.

People with delicate, well-groomed skin are attacked - it is easier to bite through. (What to apply against bedbugs) Women and children suffer more. The bite resembles a mosquito bite, but with a clearly visible boundary. (How to distinguish a bug bite from a mosquito) The distance between them is about 4 cm. Those located close to each other merge into a large red spot.

The domestic bug feeds once every 7 days. But bite marks may appear every 2-3 days. They can survive without food for more than a month.

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Fun fact: Not all bed bugs live inside the bed. And to prevent insects living in other parts of the apartment from getting into it, you can use Hector bedbug traps. The trap is a stand with a special groove.

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Consequences of bites

• Severe itching and pain appears.
• Nervous exhaustion – bedbugs prevent you from sleeping at night and preventing you from working during the day.
• With sensitive skin, an allergic reaction, increased body temperature, and sometimes loss of consciousness are observed.
• Pustules may appear when wounds become infected.
• Children suffer from bedbug bites extremely hard. With constant attack by predatory insects, anemia may develop.

How are bites treated?

Special treatment is required in rare cases. Itching and redness are mainly eliminated with hormonal ointments and antihistamines. If an infection occurs, a course of antibiotics is taken. Fenistil gel, Golden Star balm, Afloderm ointment, Bepanten and some others are excellent.

Sometimes you can do without medications.

• Wash your skin with soapy water. Laundry soap or antibacterial soap works well.
• Apply ice cubes to the bites.
• For quick healing, tinctures of calendula, St. John's wort, and plantain are used.
• Dilute baking soda in water and moisten the affected areas.

Nutrition and reproduction

Insects usually attack prey at night . Entomologists even managed to find out during what period they are most active - from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. During one meal, the bloodsucker drinks an amount of blood that is twice its body weight and makes several bites. Parasites feed once every 5-10 days.

REFERENCE! The bites are not harmful to humans, but can cause severe itching and, in children, an allergic reaction. Therefore, they must be processed.

Bedbugs - symptoms of infection

House bugs are insidious insects. They do not give themselves away in any way in the first days of their existence. Bites on the body are mistaken for fleas, mosquitoes or other insects that are not so harmful.

At this time, insects actively reproduce and colonize the territory at night.

And by the time you finally manage to identify them, they have already been able to get comfortable in your home. What should you pay attention to?

1. Bites on the body

The very first and main sign of the presence of parasites. Bedbugs on the human body leave a characteristic bite mark in the form of a path. This is explained by the fact that to obtain the required amount of food they need to make about 7 skin punctures.

Bed bugs – and their bites cannot be confused with anything else. Look at the photo to see what it looks like.

They bite painlessly. An analgesic is administered to dull the pain. Choose places where the skin is most sensitive:

• neck;
• hands;
• legs;
• shoulders;
• face,
• less often the back.

The reaction to bites depends on the individual characteristics of the body. In 20% of people they do not manifest themselves at all. For others, it’s a series of pimples that itch a lot. Still others need urgent help due to a severe allergic reaction.

For mild to moderate damage, bites can be treated with special ointments, for example, Hector gel.

In the photo you can see a clear example of a night attack.

1. Traces of blood on the bed

Stains on bedding appear for two reasons:

• After the bite, the blood from the wound continues to bleed and smear the bed.
• Linen bugs, having had their fill, become clumsy and vulnerable. With your movements, you can crush them, and the blood can get on the sheet.

The photo shows a clear picture.

1. Black dots

Waste products. You can notice them due to their quantity, since they themselves are very small in size, 0.5–1 mm. Traces from bedbugs remain in places where they accumulate or in close proximity to them.

How it looks, look at the photo.

1. Traces of shedding

Bed bugs are susceptible to molting. Husks and skins remain near the insect nest. If you managed to see such a picture, you are on the right track. See photo for what it looks like.

1. The smell of bedbugs

When a room is heavily infested, a cloying, sweetish smell begins to appear. Reminds me of the smell of rotten raspberries or almonds. Furniture bugs have scent glands. They emit a scent to repel enemies and when reproducing. If you suddenly smell such a smell, it’s time to start searching in earnest.

How dangerous are bites?

These blood-sucking parasites are not known to transmit infections or life-threatening diseases . Nevertheless, their bites cannot be ignored.

Externally, they differ from mosquitoes in that they look like a path of several punctures. They:

• cause itching and irritation on the skin;
• lead to nervousness and lack of sleep;
• affect the psychological state;
• reduce performance;
• provoke allergies.

Scratching bites can lead to pustules. In rare cases, if a child is regularly bitten by bedbugs, there is a risk of developing iron deficiency anemia.

We also bring to your attention useful information about bites from fleas, cockroaches, and ants. Find out why cockroaches are dangerous to humans and what diseases fleas carry.

How to detect bedbugs in your home

To quickly and effectively eliminate parasites, you need to find their nest. Thanks to their parasitic lifestyle, they have to hide in secluded places located not far from a sleeping person. You need to start your search in the bedroom and living room, where most of the time a person sleeps or sits motionless.

Bedbugs like warmth and darkness. Most often they settle under the mattress, in the sofa, in the folds of bedding or the seams of upholstered furniture. They prefer certain types of material:

• textile;
• plastic;
• tree;
• paper.

They don’t like metal structures, cold and moisture and move away from there.

Common Habitats

• Bed frame, mattress, upholstered furniture, blankets, pillows, bedding.
• Storage places under the sofa are drawers for linen.
• Furniture in the bedroom - chests of drawers, lamps, clocks, paintings, photographs.
• Curtains, cornices, blinds, switches, sockets.
• Cracks in the walls and places where wallpaper and parquet have peeled off.
• Skirting boards.
• Carpets and carpet runners.
• Books on the shelves.
• Window and door frames, mirrors on the walls.
• In pets' sleeping areas.

Prepare yourself for the fact that the picture you see will be unpleasant. How this can be, look at the photo.

Bedbug in bed

Bedbugs photo

Bedbug on hand

Another image of a family of parasites in the next photo.

Three bedbugs

The opinion that bedbugs live in old and dirty rooms is considered incorrect. This is far from true. They can calmly exist in a house where there is complete cleanliness, chic and shine. Therefore, do not waste time, but start searching for bedbugs.

Favorable conditions

The conditions in the apartment are suitable for the existence of bedbugs: in urban housing there are no sudden temperature changes, optimal heat and humidity are maintained. The sanitary condition of the premises does not play any role; in any housing there are many secluded places for building a nest.

Bed bugs love warmth, it stimulates their vital activity, so they reproduce most actively in the summer. A comfortable temperature for the parasite is 20-25 °C. Darkness is important for hunting

The most important condition for a prosperous existence is a source of food (human) and quick access to it

A nest of bed bugs in the sofa.

Who is a friend, who is an enemy, and who is just for fun?

Like any living organism, there are harmful ones and there are useful ones. Also with bedbugs. Someone helps a person and preserves his harvest, and some not only strive to ruin the entire harvest, but also feast on the blood of its owner.

Bed bugs are beneficial (harmless)

These individuals are often identified by their coloring. It is designed specifically for repelling. Some types of bedbugs in the photo look like they are specially decorated. The line bug is a frequent visitor to home gardens and front gardens. A black and red small body, like lines drawn under a ruler. With all his appearance he “screams” - don’t come near!

His main task is to examine all umbrella plants in search of food. Dealing with it will not be difficult - assemble it manually.

Soldiers are the most common victims of children. They catch them and arrange obstacle races for them. The wingless redbug is the correct name for this insect. Hides at the roots of trees, stumps and dry grass. He finds food right there; everything suits him, from seeds, ants, eggs, larvae, dead insects and the remains of living organisms. Useful in your garden as a sanitation worker.

The bug Perillus, It was brought to Russia from Mexico on purpose. He is a threat to the Colorado potato beetle and many other “undesirable” insects. The main target is the eggs of the potato pest.

Flower bugs are specially bred to kill pests indoors. They feed on plant pests - aphids, mites, insect larvae and eggs.

Predators are the number one enemy of beetles that cause damage to agriculture. They live in abandoned houses and basements, finding food and shelter there.