A team of Canadian researchers has developed a bedbug trap. Disappeared at the beginning of the century, this pest has reappeared in developed countries and infest homes.
Bed bugs, soon eradicated? This is news that should delight many – no offense to defenders of the animal cause. Canadian researchers have just developed a trap for “bedbugs”, these insects the size of an apple seed, which hide in mattresses and persecute humans whose blood they suck during their sleep. But maybe longer.
The language of bedbugs
For nearly ten years, scientists at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia have analyzed the behavior of these little leggy vampires, and why they cluster around their victim. At the end of their research, they managed to identify three pheromones of paramount importance.
Pheromones are chemical signals secreted by animals to communicate with members of their species and to convey information to them (danger, reproduction period, pantry in sight…). The researchers have therefore synthetically reproduced pheromones that lead the bedbugs to a specific location: the trap. Once grouped together, another chemical immobilizes them inside the trap, and away from their prey.
The trap works just as well on adults as it does on little ones – but inevitably, not on eggs. It manages to attract sated insects like those that have not eaten for several days. Note that after having bitten you, a bed bug “digests” its meal for ten days, hidden in your mattress. It can also go without food for a whole year.
180,000 injections for science
However, this discovery aims more to prevent cases of infestation than to respond to them. It allows to detect the presence of the first bedbugs, before the signs which testify of an invasion. Before, therefore, let it be too late. “This trap will help thousands of hoteliers and owners find out if they have bed bug problems and treat them as soon as possible,” writes one of the researchers. on the University website. It also makes it possible to test the effectiveness of treatments ”.
Here we can salute the dedication of the scientist who conducted the research. Regine Gries indeed fed the 10,000 insects necessary for the experiment with his blood and was bitten some 180,000 times. Fortunately, with her immune system protecting her from bites, she only had mild red patches.
But for most people, the symptoms are more annoying – swelling, itching … And above all, bed bugs poison the lives of their hosts. They are lodged in carpets, clothes, beds… In North America, where they are present en masse, they constitute a real public health issue. An online register makes it possible to detect the places where they are rife.
In the suitcases of tourists
Disappeared at the beginning of the 20th century, bed bugs have reappeared for twenty years in developed countries. With the explosion of international journeys, they have found a privileged way to travel: tourist suitcases. In recent years, they have invaded Europe and landed in France. In Nantes, in October, two hundred apartments had to be evacuated due to an infestation.
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