Bed Bug Facts for Kids

25 Bed Bug Facts For Kids

1. Beg bug is the common name of a parasitic insect that is a member of the Hemiptera family in the Cimex genus.
2. Beg bugs are a common pest found in man-made structures where humans live.
3. The binomial name for beg bugs is Cimex lectularius.
4. The modern day bed bugs ancestors first appeared ~115 million years ago.
5. Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus was the first person to describe bed bugs in 1758.
6. Bed bugs can be found worldwide in any region that is permanently settled by humans.
7. The human written record of bed bugs was in 400 BCE in ancient Greece.
8. Beg bugs have a body shape like a flat apple seed.
9. Bed bugs are typically brown but can have a red to dark brown color after the feed.
10. Bed bugs have a hematophagous diet, which means they exclusively feed on blood, especially human blood.
11. The average bed bug is between 0.157 and 0.275 inches in length.
12. The average lifespan of a bed bug is between 10 and 12 months.
13. A beg bug typically feeds on human blood every four to five days, but in some cases can survive for a year without a meal.
14. A beg bug has six stages throughout its life. They start out as an egg and hatches into a nymph. There are four nymph stages before they reach adulthood.
15. A female bed bug can lay between one and five eggs a day, with a total of up 500 eggs in a single lifetime.
16. A bed bug egg white and have the same appearance as a grain of rice, just much smaller with a length of 0.04 inches.
17. It only takes two weeks for bed bugs to hatch from an egg and will instantly start feeding on human blood.
18. Any home can get a bed bug infestation. The cleanliness of a home isn’t the cause of an infestation. An infestation is caused when someone unknowingly transport bed bugs from an infested place to another.
19. Luckily, research has shown that bed bugs cannot transmit pathogens to humans when feeding.
20. Buildings infested with bed bugs are easy to detect. They live close to their feeding source and feed at night they’re also found in and around beds. Places they are most found is in the piping, seams, and tags of a mattress and/or box spring.
21. Bites from a bed bug can have no visible effect on the skin or cause obviously rashes and blisters.
22. There is also a scientifically proven negative physiological effect in humans who are or have delt with bed bugs.
23. Prior to the 1950s, bed bugs were common in buildings. In fact, if you lived in the first half of the 20th century you almost were sure to see or get bitten by one.
24. The use of DDT, a potent pesticide, was very effective and virtually eliminated bed bug infestation where it was used.
25. Staring in the 1970s, DDT was banned and in many other countries. As a result of this, by the 1980s infestations of bed bugs began to rise again.

Beg Bug Pictures

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the below images will be helpful for your research on bed bugs. Below are three various pictures of bed bugs. These pictures should help you better understand bed bugs, one of the worst sleepover buddies.

A picture of bed bugs and their eggs.

A picture of bed bug bits on a woman's back.

A picture of a bed bug infestation in a mattress.