Researchers who studied infested areas to determine how many bedbugs does it take to infest a building found that just one fertilized female bedbug can produce enough offspring to cause an infestation. Bedbugs are small insects that tend to reside in the areas where people sleep and feed on human blood. They are not known to carry disease but can result in itching skin and allergic reactions. The bedbugs that were studied in infested apartment buildings were all so genetically similar that researchers believe that generations of offspring from one female continue to mate with one another. Bedbugs are not known to be affected by any mutations caused by inbreeding, making them likely to procreate at rapid paces. They also can live up to one year without feeding on blood and are resistant to insecticides, making them difficult to eradicate.
More about bedbug infestation:
- Bedbugs also feed on the blood of chickens and often infest poultry houses.
- Researchers believe there is evidence that bedbugs were present in ancient Egypt.
- Bedbugs can travel more than 8.2 feet (2.5 m) in a five-minute span.
