{"id":613510,"date":"2026-02-24T20:19:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/613510\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:19:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:19:12","slug":"scientists-have-discovered-the-bed-bugs-greatest-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/613510\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Have Discovered the Bed Bug’s Greatest Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite their tiny size, bed bugs are perhaps the scariest thing a person can realistically encounter in their home. But what do these blood-sucking fiends fear most? The answer, recent research shows, is apparently water.<\/p>\n

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, tracked how bed bugs behaved around water. The insects avoided wet surfaces as much as possible, though younger bugs were more nimble at doing so, they found. The team\u2019s research not only sheds light on one of humanity\u2019s most spine-chilling parasites but could also help improve pest control efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese findings demonstrate that the wet surface is intrinsically aversive to bed bugs, a factor that must be considered in the development and application of liquid-based control tactics to prevent bed bugs from evading freshly treated surfaces,\u201d the study researchers wrote in their paper, published<\/a> this past December in the Journal of Ethology.<\/p>\n

A fortuitous discovery <\/p>\n

As with many things in science, this discovery was made by complete accident.<\/p>\n

Entomologist Dong-Hwan Choe was preparing to feed bed bugs raised in his lab when he noticed that a feeding machine had started leaking blood onto one of the colony vials where the bugs are kept. To his surprise, the bugs in the vial steered clear away from the wet blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe leaked blood was slowly soaking the paper from the top of the vial. I thought the bed bugs would be happy to drink the blood from the paper,\u201d Choe said in a statement<\/a> from the university. \u201cBut what I saw was very different. They were actively avoiding the part of paper that became wet with blood. They wouldn\u2019t even walk near the wet areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WaterOne of the UCR team\u2019s experiments. \u00a9 Jorge Bustamante, Jr. \/Dong-Hwan Choe\/ UCR <\/p>\n

Curious, Choe and his team soaked some paper with water, finding the exact same pattern. Then they carried out more extensive experiments, closely recording how bed bugs, young and old, male and female, moved in the presence of surfaces with or without water.<\/p>\n

All in all, the researchers found, the bed bugs consistently spent much less time on wet surfaces as opposed to dry ones. Nearly 90% of the time, the bugs moved away from the wet surfaces before they even came close to touching the water. That said, juvenile bed bugs, or nymphs, were about 60% quicker than older bugs at turning away from water, suggesting they have an especially strong aversion to water.<\/p>\n

Though this appears to be the first documented report of bed bugs fearing water, it makes intuitive sense, the researchers say. These insects are incredibly flat, and the strong adhesive force of water could threaten to block their spiracles on their belly, the external pores that allow them to breathe (their version of lungs). In other words, even a tiny bit of water might be enough to easily drown them.<\/p>\n

What does this mean for bed bug control? <\/p>\n

Bed bugs were nearly eradicated in the mid-20th century, but they\u2019ve made a strong comeback in recent decades. While bed bug populations may have stabilized more recently, they remain a persistent indoor pest. So it\u2019s obviously important to find the most effective way to eradicate these bugs for good from a home.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Other research has shown that bed bugs have evolved widespread resistance<\/a> to the most commonly used insecticides, highlighting the need for more comprehensive pest management that doesn\u2019t solely rely on chemicals. These findings further indicate that exterminators should be especially careful about how they use liquid-based methods of removal, the researchers say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the insecticides don\u2019t kill the bed bugs right away, then they will leave the treated areas and disperse elsewhere,\u201d Choe said.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, it\u2019s comforting to know that even our real-life nightmares have their own fears to be worried about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite their tiny size, bed bugs are perhaps the scariest thing a person can realistically encounter in their…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":613511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[17758,210,26056,146862,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-613510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-bed-bugs","tag-health","tag-insects","tag-pests","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116127463410204427","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}