“Menace in the Mattress” (chow time, really)

The Entomological Society of America (ESA) is featuring a bed bug video on its YouTube channel:

As you can see, it’s one prolonged “boo.”

Nevertheless, there are opportunities to notice things about bed bugs everywhere really. I first played this video without sound, and perhaps that is the best way to view it. It reminded me of the observations of Aboul-Nasr and Erakey (Mssrs?): “The process of cleaning the antennae and proboscis with the fore legs may then follow.”

So it’s not that they don’t groom themselves, they don’t groom themselves with their mouth parts.

One further observation, Usinger quoting Hase:

“The bug secures itself with its claws on the skin, with the forelegs reaching quite far forward, in order to have leverage when introducing the stylets. In starved bugs there may be an intense vibrating movement before piercing. First the beak is touched vertically to the surface and the skin is tested repeatedly with its tip… The antennae are no longer pointed forward, but rather backward on a line level with the eyes. At this point—while the insect makes rather energetic pushing movements with the head and the entire body may be brought into sway with the abdomen moving up and down—the introduction of the stylets begins.”

Emphasis added. From Hase, A. 1917. Die Bettwanze (Cimex lectularius L.): ihr Leben und ihre Bekämpfung quoted in Usinger, Monograph of Cimicidae, 1966, p. 23. (Their life history and control eradication? Hase had plenty interesting things to say; unfortunately for us, if we don’t have German, we can only get at them second-hand.)

These pages may be of related interest:

1. “Die Bettwanzen und ich”
2. Bed bugs in the subway, sorta