What does a furniture bug look like and how to get rid of it

Furniture bugs are the same age as dinosaurs. Over a long evolution, insects have ideally adapted to a special lifestyle. The fossil ancestors of the bugs had wings and ate the juice of plants, like many modern types of bugs. But over time, a whole family of synanthropic insects stood out, which began to feed on blood. They survived their first food source - dinosaurs and are still distinguished by resistance to natural factors and chemical methods of struggle.

Appearance

Furniture bug, he bed bugHe’s home, he’s underwear. Under the abundance of names, one pest is hidden, which settles closer to the source of food - man, birds, animals. It does not matter for him where to live - in a cave, a bird's nest, the hole of a beast or a comfortable city apartment. The main thing is that there was a warm-blooded creature nearby, on which he could eat.

Small, 3-9 mm adult furniture bugs have a flattened body, ideally suited for penetration into tiny crevices. A new generation has grown up that does not know what furniture bugs look like. Synthesized pyrethrins reduced the bug population by as much as 30 years. But gradually the insects adapted and developed immunity to insecticides, which led to the appearance of a large number of parasites.

Interesting!

In 400 BC, bedbugs were described in medical manuscripts as a remedy for earaches, snakebites, and hysteria. At the end of the XVII century, Thomas Moufet wrote that the furniture bug in many medicines is an important component. A book on homeopathy published in America in the 19th century provided a recipe for tinctures from furniture bed bugs for malaria. Healers in ancient Greece prepared ointment for eye infections from ground bugs and breast milk.

Furniture bugs in the photo look menacing and intimidating. The body is covered with chitinous cover. But the abdomen has a division into segments, due to which the insect increases in sizewhen eating. The structure of the body and the plasticity of the joints of its parts makes the parasite invulnerable to mechanical methods of destruction.

An insect has three pairs of articular paws that are jogging. With their help, it moves briskly, making short dashes. A head with a beveled forehead allows you to deeply dig into the skin, reaching the blood vessels.

Oral apparatus and method of nutrition

The oral apparatus of the parasite is piercing-sucking. The lower mandibles form a pointed tube, lateral mandibles gnaw through the skin and push the tube deep into. Nearby is a groove into which the ducts of the salivary glands exit. The bug injects enzymes into the wound, which have an analgesic, anticoagulant and astringent effect. He prefers to bite the parasite in places with thin skin - the sides, the inner side of the forearms. But more often you can find traces bedbugs on those parts of the body that remain naked during sleep.

Interesting!

In order to be able to fertilize the female, and the female to lay eggs, the parasites need to completely “fill up” with blood at least twice.The female can suck out about 7 mg of blood at a time, which is three times her own weight. By the color of the abdomen, you can determine how long a furniture bug was eating. Color varies from scarlet (fresh blood) to almost black (digested blood, nutritional time about 3-4 hours).

A bed or furniture bug feeds on blood at all stages of development. Larvae to move to the next age you need to eat more often than adults. Sensitive sensors are located on the abdomen, legs and antennae of the insect, which respond to temperature and smell. Thanks to them, the bug at a considerable distance feels its victim.

An insect bite does not pose a threat to humans. Proteins in saliva are dangerous, causing an immune response and viruses that can remain inside the parasite for a long time in a virulent state. Bites are characteristic of parasites. Furniture bugs leave paths from several tracks after their “meal”. The linearity is due to the fact that the insect moves along a blood vessel. It is this arrangement that signals the presence of furniture bugs in the house. Adult bloodsuckers and their nymphs can bite.

Reproduction Method and Life Cycle

It is interesting to study how the furniture bug propagates. Mating occurs in a traumatic way. With a sharp genital organ, a furniture bug pierces the female abdomen and introduces seminal fluid. It is transported to a special body, in which it can be for a long time and spent as necessary.

Interesting!

Gametes, which are in the female’s body, are used in emergency cases by her as a food source. This increases the chances of survival, especially in the absence of food. Throughout his life, a female lays 250-500 eggs.

With a favorable microclimate, the female can lay more than 5 eggs daily. The Berlese organ, in addition to storing gametes, produces substances that promote regeneration during traumatic fertilization.

In search of a partner, the male is guided not only by smell, but also by the size of the object. This is due to the fact that the larvae are very similar in appearance to adults, but differ in size. The larger the object, the more ready for fertilization it is. Therefore, very often males are “mistaken” and copulate with males. It is also unique that the seminal fluid in the body of the “coated” male mixes with his own. During fertilization, he injects several sets of gametes into the female. Despite the fact that almost 50% of sexual acts are homosexual, valuable seed material is not lost.

After a week, nymphs of the first stage come out of the laid eggs. There are five stages in total that a nymph goes from leaving an egg to an adult. The whole process takes 1-1.5 months. But everything in the life of the parasite depends on the living conditions.

Living conditions

Furniture bugs can exist in a narrow temperature range. The upper limit of comfort is + 30 ° C, and the lower + 14 ° C. At + 14 ° С, females stop laying eggs, and larvae stop growing and molting. At + 10 ° C, egg development stops. At low temperatures, parasites fall into a state similar to lethargy, in which they can exist for a long time.

But minus temperature does not kill furniture bugs immediately. At -16 ° C, they remain viable for 2-3 days. Only temperatures below -20 ° C can destroy the parasite almost instantly.

High temperatures stimulate all life processes, but also shorten life due to accelerated metabolism. You can instantly destroy furniture bugs by exposing them to temperatures above + 50 ° C.

Parasites are slightly less sensitive to moisture fluctuations, since the chitinous cover inhibits the loss of moisture by the body. But for a long time being in conditions of low humidity and high temperature, the insect dries. It can without much damage endure the loss of 1/3 of the fluid in the body.

Interesting!

Even in a state of numbness, the parasite sensitively reacts to the body heat of the potential victim and its smell. Having caught a signal, the bug is activated and goes out to feed. In conditions of comfort, bed bugs in furniture can live for about a year. In a state of "lethargy", this period increases to 15 months.

Parasite Control Methods

For a long time people used to freeze and treat furniture with hot steam or boiling water to destroy parasites. Heat treatment is not the most effective method of getting rid of bloodsuckers. It is technically difficult to freeze the entire house without damaging the water supply, and heating the room to + 50 ° C has the risk of damaging some things. In large cities such as Moscow, efficient apartment handling, heavily infected with furniture bugs, conduct special pest control services. But not all such services are available. Therefore, a person needs to know how to get rid of furniture bugs on their own.

There are many in the market effective means in various forms of release:

• aerosols and sprays;
  

  

• dusts;
• crayons;
• microencapsulated preparations.

Each tenant of an infected apartment can choose the most effective and convenient means of application in order to get rid of bed bugs at home.

Modern drugs include several types of insecticides in order to increase their infectious ability and ensure the destruction of even resistant generations of bugs.

If succeed detect the location of parasites, then even one treatment may not destroy them all. The house has to be processed several times, since the insecticide leads to the death of adult insects and larvae, but does not affect egg laying. Re-processing is carried out when a new generation of parasites appears from them.

In addition to processing places where bugs are most often:

• beds, upholstered furniture;
• nests under the wallpaper;
• in sockets;
• in the crevices.

Professionals recommend processing ventilation grills, window and door frames - places where insects can enter the house. Combination of destructive and barrier methods room treatment allows you to permanently eliminate parasites. Scientists continue to look for effective means of combating furniture bugs. Besides ultrasonic repellers, natural repellents and pheromone traps, they are developing methods to control the parasite population by acting on their genes.