What are bed bugs doing in hotel rooms?
Credit: Rickard Ignell/Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Traumatic insemination is worth mentioning as a follow up to my post on bed bugs in hotels. Male bed bugs, ScienceNews reports, “ignore the opening to the female reproductive tract and inject sperm with a needlelike appendage directly through the outer covering of a mate’s body.” Yikes!
The report also explains that the male insects will happily mate with well-fed individuals of either sex until an accosted male sends out a special pheromone causing the aggressor to back off.
The pheromone can actually be detected by humans. It smells
a bit like almond, but not particularly pleasant. “Older people say that you used to be able to tell whose house had bed bugs because it had a peculiar smell.”
Print this post
Other posts:
- Kill bed bugs with heat
- Don’t let the bedbugs bite!
- Las Vegas real estate business ethics
- Hotel room safe thefts
[...] bugs, we read, are living in hotels everywhere, dining on us. As a frequent hotel guest (200+ days a year for 16 years) I’m [...]
07 Dec 2009 at 10:56 am