{"id":29510,"date":"2025-06-12T09:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T09:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29510"},"modified":"2025-06-12T09:25:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T09:25:29","slug":"early-humans-settled-in-cities-bedbugs-followed-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=29510","title":{"rendered":"Early Humans Settled in Cities. Bedbugs Followed Them."},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new study suggests that bedbugs were the first urban pest, and their population thrived in that environment. For the bloodsucking insects, it\u2019s been the perfect 13,000-year-long marriage.<\/p>\n

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When it comes to successful relationships, there\u2019s nothing quite like the long, long marriage between bedbugs and humans, even if the affection goes in one direction.<\/p>\n

The species of bedbug that feeds on us while we slumber is monogamous with humans; it does not shack up with any other species. Despite the ick factor, the insect does not transmit disease, nor does it cause harm beyond the mild irritation where its needlelike mouth pierces the skin.<\/p>\n

That relationship, it turns out, has been going on for much longer than previously known.<\/p>\n

According to a new study<\/a> published in the journal Biology Letters, the bedbug\u2019s long affair with humans began about 245,000 years ago. The insect strayed from the cave-dwelling bats that had been its sole source of sustenance and discovered the blood of a Neanderthal, or some other early human, that had bedded down in the same cave.<\/p>\n

From that point on, scientists say, bedbugs diverged into two distinct species: one that lived off bat blood, and one that fed on humans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou\u2019re not going to find a bedbug in your garden,\u201d said Warren Booth, a professor of urban entomology at Virginia Tech and a lead author of the study. \u201cThey are completely reliant on us to spread.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a decline that accompanied early man\u2019s nomadic existence, the human-dependent bedbug population began to explode about 13,000 years ago, the study found.<\/p>\n

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A new study suggests that bedbugs were the first urban pest, and their population thrived in that environment. For the bloodsucking insects, it\u2019s been the perfect 13,000-year-long marriage.When it comes to successful relationships, there\u2019s nothing quite like the long, long marriage between bedbugs and humans, even if the affection goes in one direction.The species of bedbug that feeds on us while we slumber is monogamous with humans; it does not shack up with any other species. Despite the ick factor, the insect does not transmit disease, nor does it cause harm beyond the mild irritation where its needlelike mouth pierces the skin.That relationship, it turns out, has been going on for much longer than previously known.According to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, the bedbug\u2019s long affair with humans began about 245,000 years ago. The insect strayed from the cave-dwelling bats that had been its sole source of sustenance and discovered the blood of a Neanderthal, or some other early human, that had bedded down in the same cave.From that point on, scientists say, bedbugs diverged into two distinct species: one that lived off bat blood, and one that fed on humans.\u201cYou\u2019re not going to find a bedbug in your garden,\u201d said Warren Booth, a professor of urban entomology at Virginia Tech and a lead author of the study. \u201cThey are completely reliant on us to spread.\u201dAfter a decline that accompanied early man\u2019s nomadic existence, the human-dependent bedbug population began to explode about 13,000 years ago, the study found.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29512,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29510"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29513,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29510\/revisions\/29513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}