Bed bugs are attracted to warmth, but body heat works mainly as a short-range host-finding cue. Research shows that bed bugs orient toward human-temperature heat when they’re already close to […]

A bed bug can look surprisingly different after a blood meal. An unfed adult is broad, oval, brown, and extremely flat. Once it feeds, the abdomen expands, the body becomes […]

At normal room temperatures, newly hatched bed bug nymphs survive without a blood meal for much less time than older nymphs and adults. In one laboratory study, first instar nymphs […]

Bed bug poop usually appears as small, dark brown to black spots around places where the bugs hide. On absorbent material such as fabric, the liquid waste can soak into […]

Bed bugs eat blood exclusively. Humans are their primary host, although bed bugs can also feed on other warm-blooded animals, including dogs, cats, birds, and rodents. They don’t eat plant […]

Under warm, well-fed conditions, a bed bug can go from a freshly laid egg to a reproducing adult in about 37 days. That number, confirmed by the Virginia Department of […]

Bed bugs are functionally nocturnal, with most of their activity occurring during dark periods when a host is likely to be resting. That doesn’t mean they’re permanently programmed to come […]

Every bed bug life stage is technically visible to the naked eye, including a newly hatched first-instar nymph at roughly 1.5 millimeters. Adults are considerably easier to see at around […]

An unfed adult bed bug is reddish-brown, usually somewhere around the shade of a coffee bean or apple seed. After feeding, that color becomes noticeably darker and can shift toward […]

An adult bed bug measures roughly 5 to 7 millimeters long, or about a quarter inch, putting it somewhere around the length of a grain of rice or a small […]