The paper:
Johnson, C. G. 1941. The ecology of the bed-bug, Cimex lectularius L., in Britain. Journal of Hygiene 41: 345–461
Our last two posts:
Whence that elusive 18-month longevity figure? You know, the one you see everywhere.
Usinger gives Omori’s table in the Monograph of Cimicidae, but it’s a table with mean values and strikes me an unlikely candidate for the 18-month mythical figure. A better candidate is a 1914 source cited by both Usinger and Johnson (below).
What says Johnson about maximal longevity?
The longest-lived adult in my experiments was a female at 13 [degrees] C., 90% R.H. (about optimal for survival): she died between the 562nd and 572nd day after moulting from the fifth instar. Although this bug was kept for many months with a male she laid no eggs (13 [degrees] C. is the ovipositional threshold), so there is some doubt if she was mated: but if so then this period of survival would be by no means the maximum, for virgin bugs are the longer lived. It is conjectural whether it would have fed and oviposited towards the end of the starvation period.
and:
In my experiments maximum survivals for unfed first instars were 210-13 days at 7 [degrees] C. and 90% R.H. and 355-60 days for second instars at 15 [degrees] C. and 90% R.H.
Natural mortality in Johnson’s hut, with hosts present, was actually high, with only 60% of adult males and 51% of females still alive on the 100th day. Numbers eaten by the hosts, however, are not given in that particular table, but were (I think!) excluded from the daily count.
In another experiment, with 51 bed bugs fed once on a human host:
Unfed fourth instars were allowed to feed once, to repletion, 9 days after moulting. These were allowed to moult and the fifth instars were allowed to starve to death without further food.
The maximum length of life in days was 179. The mean was 140.15 days.
But, of course, the money quote:
Bacot (1914) kept bugs fasting in various stages of development in an outhouse for 18 months and induced them to feed after this period.
The reference to Bacot is: Bacot, A.W. (1914). The influence of temperature, submersion and burial on the survival of eggs and larvae of Cimex lectularius. Bull. Ent. Res. 5, 111-17.
Don’t worry, there will be no Bacot’s outhouse posts…
Burial?
These pages may be of related interest:
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