World's Oldest Bed Bugs

Got bed bugs? Those pesky insects have been known for biting humans for millenia (Aristotle even mentioned them), but new fossil records show that the problem went way further back than that:

Scientists discovered 14 ancient bedbug specimens in the Paisley Five Mile Point Cave near Paisley, Oregon. Of the specimens, one was around 5,100 years old; 13 others were between 9,400 and 11,000 years old.

Somewhere between 5,000 and 11,000 years ago, bedbugs fed on bats that roosted in the Paisley Caves. “The bedbugs that we know from hotel rooms became a parasite of humans long ago, thousands of years ago, in the Old World, when people were living in caves with bats in them,” archeoentomologist Martin Adams said.

Read more over at OPB | Scientific paper over at Journal of Medical Entomology


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