Bedbugs have been an irritating menace affecting many people at their residential houses, matatus, and even in luxury hotels.
It turns out that these tiny demons have been bothering bigger animals for millions of years now.
Researchers have discovered that they have been causing nightmares since the times of dinosaurs over 100 million years ago.
Why are bedbugs such intractable jerks? They've had at least 100 million years of practice. My first piece for the @nytimes. https://t.co/C7B1pDY9BL
— Becky Ferreira (@beckyferreira) May 16, 2019
A new study published on May 16 has found that bedbugs have existed in one form or another for 115 million years, putting the pernicious parasites on Earth at the same time as the extinct dinosaurs.
To rebuild the bedbug lineage, a team of researchers spent 15 years collecting wild bedbugs from around the world and studying specimens in museum collections.
The team compared the DNA of these modern buggos to see how different species diverged in the past, and how often new species arose to pester humans and other potential hosts.
“The first big surprise we found was that bedbugs are much older than bats, which everyone assumed to be their first host,” lead study author Steffen Roth, from the University Museum of Bergen in Norway, said in a statement.
Bedbugs beat bats to the planet by a solid 50 million years.
The researchers also found that two species of modern, human-biting bedbugs have been on the planet far longer than we Homo sapiens, contradicting the theory that these age-old pests evolved into new species specifically to suck our blood.
The researchers now want to learn more about how these ancient critters developed the traits needed to suck the world’s blood for so long — and, hopefully, help humans figure out better ways to control them.
The government has declared war on bed bugs that had exploded in several densely populated towns by launching an initiative to eradicate the pests by deploying pest control personnel to spray affected areas.
Do you have any experience with these blood-suckers?
Let us know in the comments section!