What Do Bed Bugs Look Like?
“Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.” We all knew this rhyme when we were kids, and it gave us visions of little creatures running around nibbling on our fingers and toes while we slept. We imagined that they were as big as coins or invisible, that they were green or brown, fat, thin, long, round, red, purple, with sharp teeth and spikes all over… ok, so our imaginations ran away with us as kids, but what do bed bugs look like?
Classification
Bed bugs are classified as insects due to the fact that they have six legs and a body made up of three parts, a head, a thorax and abdomen. They are wingless creatures with a segmented looking body covering, thin short legs, and short antennae.
Size
They are tiny creatures, about the size of a pinhead, roughly 5 to 9 mm (1/4 inch to 3/8 inch) in length, and are very flat. They are oval in shape and you can actually see them with the naked eye if you are looking closely enough. They look very similar to a wood tick and it is often hard to distinguish them from other mites and ticks. Additionally, after a meal, the bedbug can look different, with its shape changing to become longer and rounder. Young bed bugs are only about 1.6 mm (1/16 inch) and are almost see-through, except for when they feed.
Colouring
Bed bugs range in their colouring from white to creamy brown, but when they feed they turn a rusty shade of purplish red. This is because bed bugs actually don’t bite chunks of flesh out of you, as the rhyme would have us believe, but they suck your blood, similar to the way mosquitoes do injecting a numbing agent and anticoagulant while the feed. It takes about 2-5 minutes for bed bugs to become full.
Under a microscope, bed bugs look extremely scary and ugly, as they have little spiky hairs that are much more visible than with the naked eye. There are also some species of bed bug, which have longer hairs than others, such as the Bat Bug. Other species include the Chimney Swift Bug and the Swallow Bug, which also feed on humans when their usual animal and bird hosts are not around.
So, now you know what to look out for when you are cleaning your bedding and mattress, and will be able to spot an infestation easily. You can therefore act quickly and effectively eliminate these parasitic insects in no time.
