Are bed bugs having sex with their siblings? This was my burning question during a PTA sponsored "how to avoid bed bugs lecture" last week. The question I just couldn't bear to ask in front of all the other people in attendance. Actually, "all the other" is a bit of a stretch. I expected a standing room only crowd ranging from the curious to the obsessively worried but alas, it was a small group of wild eyed, bed bug stressed people scratching at their skin from the moment the lecture materials were handed out.
The lecturer pointed out: one bed bug an infestation does not make. A baby bed bug who, lets say, crawls out of your Victoria's Secret shopping bag, needs to eat and molt five times and THEN find a mate and lay eggs before you have eight little bed bugs in your home. So my question is: what does this little family of 8 do? We know the mom goes ahead and lays six more eggs the next day and the next and the next. I find no solace in the idea that I might be able to kill one, wayward bedbug before it snacks on me 5 times. Remember in high school biology class when the teacher told you about all the things that had to go wrong in your body for Cancer to occur, and you felt safe for about 15 seconds before you realized you could name 5 people who had cancer? This is how I feel about the chances of my (hypothetical) Victoria Secret bed bug finding a mate. Now that is bad enough...but are the babies (after they feed on you five times) reproducing with their siblings? Is this what it takes to get the black mattresses we see in pictures online? Well, I don't know the answer because I couldn't ask about bed bug incest at a PTA meeting.
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