Science

Eugene

(61,935 posts) Fri May 17, 2019, 10:58 PM May 2019

Bedbugs Menaced the Dinosaur Age Before Moving Into Our Mattresses

Source: New York Times

Bedbugs Menaced the Dinosaur Age Before Moving Into Our Mattresses

We may not even be their preferred meal.

By Becky Ferreira
May 16, 2019

Most people hope never to lay eyes on a bedbug. But one team of researchers spent 15 years scouring guano-filled caves, cliffside nests and museum archives for bedbug specimens that might clarify the murky natural history of this globally loathed parasite.

The team’s findings, published Thursday in Current Biology, confirmed that bedbugs originated at least 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed Earth. The discovery upends the established timeline of bedbug evolution, and could help to anticipate the pest’s next moves in an era of climate change and expansive human activity.

The research team also found that the main varieties of bedbugs linked to humans evolved some 47 million years ago. Because they are tens of millions of years older than humans, their origins must not be linked to the emergence of Homo sapiens, as past studies have suggested.

To reconstruct the complex evolutionary story of bedbugs — a family of insects known as Cimicidae — the team analyzed the DNA of 34 species, sourced from 62 locations.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/science/bedbugs-dinosaurs-evolution.html

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Related: Bedbugs Evolved before Their Bat Hosts and Did Not Co-speciate with Ancient Humans (Current Biology)

5 replies

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Highlight:

Bedbugs Menaced the Dinosaur Age Before Moving Into Our Mattresses (Original Post) Eugene May 2019 OP

Now I have the creepy crawlys and I itch all over. Marie Marie May 2019 #1

I was bitten when I was in a hotel in Amsterdam BigmanPigman May 2019 #2

Oh, dear lord. PoindexterOglethorpe May 2019 #3

well just the ones that smoked qazplm135 May 2019 #4

Yes. I love that cartoon. Here it is for those who don't know it. PoindexterOglethorpe May 2019 #5

Marie Marie

(9,999 posts)

1. Now I have the creepy crawlys and I itch all over.

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Fri May 17, 2019, 11:02 PM

May 2019

BigmanPigman

(51,618 posts)

2. I was bitten when I was in a hotel in Amsterdam

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Fri May 17, 2019, 11:48 PM

May 2019

and within a few days I looked like I had Chicken Pox (hundreds of red bumps). I changed my room 4 times in a week too. Eventually I was not allowed on a plane and had to go to visit relatives in Italy while I got treated. When I got home my dermatologist said I really had ONLY 20-30 real bites and the other 300 were an imitation/allergic reaction.

I found out later that this was the beginning of a world wide infestation that was likely the result of too much pesticide use and they had become immune to DDT. Even the best hotels were infested. They can hide in anything and travel easily. No wonder they have lived for millions of years. They are as bad as roaches.