Bed Bug Life Cycle
A bed bug under ideal conditions can live anywhere from 6 months to a year! However, the average lifespan is 2-4 months. Immature bed bugs can actually live a few months without a food source and an adult bedbug can last much longer. Here is some bed bug information to note.
Just one bedbug can lay 200-250 eggs in its lifetime. After hatching, there are five nymphal stages before reaching maturity. Each stage requires a blood meal usually lasting a week if food and temperature conditions are adequate. Bed bugs can hit adulthood in only 37 days and begin to mate/ start another life cycle.
Bed bugs reproduce by the males essentially stabbing the female’s abdomen with a specialized hardened reproductive organ. This process is called traumatic insemination. The pregnant bed bug takes roughly 17 days to lay eggs and 10 days to hatch. A single pregnant female can cause an infestation of more than 5,000 bed bugs within a six-month period.
Eggs (1mm).
1st stage nymph (1.5 mm).
2nd stage nymph (2 mm).
3rd stage nymph (2.5 mm)
4th stage nymph (3 mm).
5th stage nymph (4.5 mm).
Unfed adult
Fed adult
Bed Bug Origins
Bed Bugs (Cimex lectularius Linnaeus) are insects and members of the order Heteroptera. They are ectoparasites and are universal pests of humans, domestic animals, bats, birds, and various other mammals.
The bed bug is believed to have received its common name derived from the human bed where it often seeks refuge during daylight hours and feed at night. At night, bed bugs come out to feed on the bed’s occupant. Bed bugs have six legs and do not fly.