Sorry, silly mood.
A new bacterium in bed bugs has been found. It’s related to an endosymbiotic bacterium already identified in ticks, Candidatus Midichloria mitochondrii. Yes, named after the bacteria that communicate with the Force. Pretty neat, that prerogative of naming. I’m not caught up on the later Star Wars films so I had fun looking this up.
Anyway, finding new symbionts is great… maybe. If they’re useful to bed bugs then killing or disabling them could be useful to us. I guess we have to first understand what it is that they do. In ticks, Candidatus M. mitochondrii is 100% prevalent in females, lives within the cells of the ovaries and is transmitted to the eggs.
I’m reminded that exploring bacterial toxins is on USDA’s stated wish list.
The bed bugs for this study were collected from “a recent outbreak in French warships in the Mediterranean harbour of Toulon.” More fodder for those who assert a certain theory of the resurgence, but never out loud and in the open.
These pages may be of related interest:
