Found on a random search: Vincent Harraca of Lund University, Sweden is using a servosphere to study bed bugs. It’s a kind of virtual treadmill, a locomotion compensating device with a camera and a funnel to present substances to an insect and observe attraction and orientation.
Here’s a bonus item to illustrate how this works and what may be learned: a really cool video of another blood-sucking insect on a servosphere (not a bed bug). Supplementary material to a thesis: Otálora-Luna F (2006) Chemosensory and behavioural adaptations for haematophagy in triatomine bugs (Heteroptera: Reduviidae). Université de Neuchâtel.
Appetence behaviors. We know what that means, do we not?
Maybe we’ll talk a little bit about R. prolixus later when we discuss bites (we will I hope).
One day we’ll know so much about bed bugs, as much as is already known about other blood-sucking insects. But the question is, will we be able to send them to their special pin, cardboard and styrofoam habitat? Or is this a permanent struggle?
These pages may be of related interest: