Bed Bug Picture / Bedbug Picture 3 (Hardin MD / CDC)

Click Free Pest Control Quote
to fill in a form to obtain a free pest control quote today.

Return to Bedbug Pictures from CDC | Hardin MD : Bedbugs

This 2006 photograph depicts a frontal view of an adult bed bug, Cimex lectularius, as it is in the process of ingesting a blood meal from the arm of a voluntary human host.

Bed bugs are not vectors in nature of any known human disease. Although some disease organisms have been recovered from bed bugs under laboratory conditions, none have been shown to be transmitted by bed bugs outside of the laboratory. Bed bug bites are difficult to diagnose due to the variability in bite response between people, and due to the change in skin reaction for the same person over time. It is best to collect and identify bed bugs to confirm bites. Bed bugs are responsible for loss of sleep, discomfort, disfiguring from numerous bites and occasionally bites may become infected.

The common bed bug C. lectularius is a wingless, red-brown, blood-sucking insect that grows up to 7 mm in length and has a lifespan from 4 months up to 1 year. Bed bugs hide in cracks and crevices in beds, wooden furniture, floors, and walls during the daytime and emerge at night to feed on their preferred host, humans.

Bed bug bites can result in clinical manifestations; the most common are small clusters of extremely pruritic, erythematous papules or wheals that represent repeated feedings by a single bed bug. Less common but more severe manifestations include grouped vesicles, giant urticaria, and hemorrhagic bullous eruptions. Bites should be managed symptomatically with topical emollients, topical corticosteroids, oral antihistamines, or some combination of these treatments.

Content Providers(s): CDC/ Harvard University, Dr. Gary Alpert; Dr. Harold Harlan; Richard Pollack Photo Credit: Piotr Naskrecki

Picture & text from CDC/PHIL. For more information see Bedbug Pictures from CDC

Continued here:
Bed Bug Picture / Bedbug Picture 3 (Hardin MD / CDC)

Click Free Exterminator Quote
to fill in a form to obtain a free exterminator quote today.