What Do Bed Bugs Look Like?

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With the epidemic of bed bugs sweeping the country it is important to understand what a bed bug looks like. If you happen to see one, or several, then at least you are one step a head of getting rid of an oncoming infestation. Anyway, what do bed bugs look like?

The Egg

Let’s begin with the beginning stage of the bed bug life cycle, the larva and egg. A bed bug egg is only about 1mm long and is white. They look very similar to ant eggs but smaller. They can hatch in 10 days and grow to adult in 4 weeks, but it really depends on a variety of factors. Depending on the temperature and how much food is available, it can take many months before the life cycle is completed. An adult bed bug can lay 300 eggs on an average birthing.

Youth and Adults

The good thing about bed bugs is that after they leave the egg they look very similar to adults but of course much smaller. The newly hatched bed bugs are often white or somewhat translucent until they grow a little bigger and their exoskeleton develops.

As adults they can grow up to 1/4 of an inch. They come equipped with 6 legs and no wings. Normally they are a brownish color but can turn redder after feeding on blood. They are actually quite flat which makes it easy for them to hide in small spaces and their bodies are somewhat oval shaped.

Sometimes you may find a whole pile of what looks like bed bugs but are in fact the exoskeletons of bed bugs. Bed bugs are similar to snakes and crabs that shed their outer layers as they grow bigger.

The main feature that everyone wants to know is, “What does their face look like and how do they drink blood?” Bed bugs actually have two long “beaks.” One of them is responsible for sucking up the blood from their victim. The other beak also pierces the victim’s skin and injects fluids that prevent blood from clotting and prevent pain signals from being sent to the victim’s brain which would alert them that they are being violated.

What do bed bugs look like? In our opinion, they look a lot scarier the more we learn about them.