Bed bugs can be found in a wide range of places including hospitals, hotels and your house. How do bed bugs move around? Do bed bugs fly or jump? How do they climb up the wall? Let’s found more in this post if bed bugs either fly, jump or have wings? And how do they infest your home? This post will cover all that and ways to stop bed bugs from moving around.
Can bed bugs fly? Bed bugs don’t have wings, therefore they cannot fly. But there are other ways in which bed bugs can get around. Just like many other wingless insect, they tend to crawl on the six legs. They come into homes through people’s luggage, clothes, furniture etc.
According to the theory of evolution, bed bugs might have had wings to move around. Currently, they don’t need the wings to move into homes. What many might confuse for a flying bed bug could be a stink bug that looks similar to bed bugs.
Bed bugs have wing pads that have never developed into wings. But may be in years to come, they wing pads might actually develop into normal wings and the bed bugs might start to fly.
Where do Bed Bugs Come from?
Bed bugs feed on human blood as their only source of food. Bed bugs come from other infested areas or from used furniture. It is also possible to carry bed bugs from luggage, purse, backpacks, or other items placed in infested areas. Bed bugs are likely to travel from rooms from apartments, hotels, hospitals etc.
Do Bed Bugs have Wings?
Bed bugs don’t have wings. Their body is somehow different from insects that fly. Insects that fly have their bodies divided into three sections, the head, thorax and the abdomen. In most cases, the wings appear to be attached to the muscles in the thorax. When they are not flying, the insects will fold their wings back over their abdomen.
Although bed bugs have the same anatomy as other insects, they don’t have wings attached to their thorax. But bed bugs do have wing pads but miss the wings to fly.
Do Bed Bugs Jump?
One would expect that since bed bugs cannot fly they can jump like fleas for instance. Unlike bed bugs, fleas don’t have wings but can jump. They do this to escape danger, travel and move from one host to another.
Bed bugs cannot jump. Their bodies is not adapted to jump. Bed bug have regular legs but not the mechanism to jump say like fleas. Although they are tiny, the size of an apple seed, bed bugs are too big to jump. Their weight and size limit them to just crawling.
If bed bugs had the ability to jump, then it would make it easier for them to move from one host to another without hiding waiting for the host to sleep and attack.
Do Bed Bugs Climb?
Bed bugs can climb any surface including the wall at will. But they find it difficult to climb smooth surfaces like metal and glass since such surfaces have nowhere for them to grip. But a rough surface like your wall or wood makes it easy for them to climb. Why? Wood or wall offers a place for their legs to grip. Any other surface that may have cracks and tiny bumps in it makes it easy for the bed bugs to climb and move around.
Crawling helps bed bugs to reach their host and access food. So, they may be hiding in walls, furniture or anywhere across the room waiting for the opportune time to attack.
How Do Bed Bugs Climb?
First, bed bugs can only climb on rough surfaces. But they need a surface where their legs can get a grip. Bed bugs have hook-like tarsal claws at the end of their legs that they use to grip on surfaces. As they climb, their legs get a grip that prevents them from falling especially if they are scaling a wall or wooden frames.
Do Bed Bugs Crawl?
It is easy for bed bugs to crawl across any surface. Bed bugs will crawl to find a new place to hide such as bedding or furniture. In the event they are in search of food, they will crawl out of their hiding and feed on you when you are fast asleep. As soon as bed bugs are exposed, they tend to crawl fast to escape from threat. Naturally, bed bugs prefer to crawl over flat than to climb up a wall.
How Do Bed Bugs Move?
Now that we know bed bugs can’t fly or jump, how do these insects move? Bed bugs do crawl. They have the ability to crawl very fast and that’s what enable them to move from one room to another or even hide.
Bed bugs are known to crawl 3-4 feet in a minute. This doesn’t look too fast but this speed is enough to run from impending danger and hide. Their timing of attack also helps to survive. They attack humans when they are deep in sleep. This particular time is enough for them to move around in the dark and feed.
Once there is an infestation of bed bugs in your home, it is easy for them to move from one room to another. They tend to hide where they can easily access their source of food. It is so common to find bed bugs staying in your mattresses.
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Bed bugs are notorious such that once you discover they are hiding in your mattress, they run and hide in small cracks near your bed headboard.
How to Stop Bed Bugs from- Moving Around
Bed bugs are naturally tiny (size of an apple seed), so it can be difficult to spot a bed bug that happens to be on your clothes. This said, it is easy to carry bed bugs inside tour home. But you can prevent and stop bed bugs from moving from one room to the other.
Naturally bed bugs prefer to stay close to where their source of food is. This is why bed bugs are common in the bedroom than in any other place of your house. A small infestation of bed bugs may go unnoticed especially if you are allergic to the bed bug bites.
But as soon as the infestation gets bigger, you will be forced to find ways of getting rid of the bed bugs including calling a professional bed bug exterminator.
