Bedbugs: How they hide and bite – CNN

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

Adult bedbugs are 5 millimeters long, comparable to the size of an eraser on a No. 2 pencil. Oval, flattened bedbugs have no usable wings and cannot fly to you to suck your blood. Adult bedbugs can go long periods of time without feeding, typically living for six to 12 months.

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

This is a baby bedbug, also known as a nymph. It's only 1 millimeter at this age, a smaller, paler version of its parent. It can still suck your blood, though, turning reddish-brown in color as it feeds. It takes five to eight weeks for a baby to grow into an adult; it will molt during each of its five stages of development.

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

This is a digitally colorized electron micrograph scan of the underside of a bed bug. The purple spike is the insect's skin piercing-sucking mouth it uses to devour its meal. The prickly hairs on the body aren't hairs at all but sensory structures known as setae.

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

It may be hard to believe, but bedbug bites are painless. They insert an anesthetic along with an anticoagulant to enhance blood flow when they bite you. It will be hours -- sometimes days -- before you begin to itch, if you do at all.

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

Bedbugs: How they hide and bite

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Bedbugs: How they hide and bite - CNN