What Do Bed Bugs Look Like?

Ever wondered what do bed bugs look like? They are actually quite difficult to differentiate from other similar insects, especially with their size. To help you learn the appearance of beg bites, you will need to look at bed bug pictures so that you can be more aware of them. In fact, pictures of bed bugs will be very much helpful to those who are wondering what do bed bugs look like.

What bed bugs look like differ in appearance from one stage to another. Because the bedbug follows a life cycle, the appearance in each stage differs when a bedbug is in a certain stage.  The egg stage is the first stage whereby the bedbug eggs look like tiny, white particles clumped together. This oval shaped, and as big as a pin head bedbug eggs stick to the particular place where they were laid for six to ten days of incubation until they are hatched. Generally, bed bug eggs are white but some are yellowish in appearance. Bedbug eggs are hard to remove by vacuums but are usually killed at high temperatures ranging from 114˚F and above even the adults.

what do bed bugs look like

The stage that follows is the nymph stage that which starts when the bedbug eggs are hatched.  The nymphs are ready to look for blood for their nourishment such that right after hatching, the nymphs start to look for meal of blood. They can crawl to find preys. When they haven’t fed on blood yet, they look pale and colorless or light brown, this bed bug appearance would change to round and purplish red the moment they feed on blood.  After feeding, they rest for a maximum of twelve hours before looking for food again. The nymphs undergo five more stages of molting or shedding of the outer covering in five weeks before attaining adulthood.

After five stages molting, the nymphs grow as adults ready for reproduction. Adult bedbugs are reddish brown in color, flattened and oval shaped and are about 5.5mm in size. The difference in color appearance of the bed bugs is caused by the digestion of blood which they sucked. Adult bedbugs often resemble ticks and small cockroaches because of their flat bodies and their color. Bedbugs are nocturnal so they usually come out at night to feast on their prey especially that humans sleep at night. Bedbugs do not have wings so they rely on crawling to find food. So the best way to find them is to keep the lights off for an hour to let them come out then turn the lights on. Though they are tiny, they can still be perceived by the naked eye. They crawl on the bed to find their prey where they suck blood for their nourishment.

Another important thing to note about what bed bugs look like is that they have suckers with two feeding tubes that are hollow that pierce the skin. One tube draws blood while the other tube injects saliva. They feed for ten minutes then go back to their resting place and come out to feed again after ten days. They can live for a year even without food during colder temperatures.

Knowing what do bed bugs look like can be of help in identifying if these are really bed bugs. To help you stick into your memory what do bed bugs look like, a bed bug picture would do you great. This will not just show you how a bed bug looks like but it will also be a guide in differentiating these bed bugs.