Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the … OK, you know where this is going.
Lured in by our breath, bed bugs come for us when we’re most vulnerable.
In dreamland, we’re oblivious to bed bug chow time.
You won’t even feel it.
It’s a quick meal.
Just a few minutes.
But it’s a filling one.
Stuffed with blood, it scurries to a nearby cranny: the seam of your mattress or behind
a baseboard.
There, they get to work growing their families.
Until you get …
You can recognize them by their signature work of art: these tiny splotches.
It’s the digested blood they leave behind.
In the 1950s, we made bed bugs retreat with DDT.
But some became resistant and now they’re back.
We help them spread – in our clothes or luggage – when we travel around.
You can kill them with other insecticides or heat, but their game of hide-and-seek makes
it tricky.
Turns out, there might be another way to stop them in their tracks.
Watch this.
It’s just taking a stroll and … Gotcha!
Its foot is stuck.
This bean leaf can incapacitate the bloodsuckers.
People in the Balkans discovered that years ago and would spread the leaves around their
beds as a trap.
The leaf’s surface is covered in these tiny hooked hairs called trichomes.
They pierce right through the bed bug’s feet, impaling their soft joints.
Many bean plants – like kidney and green beans – developed the hooks to defend against
aphids and other plant-eating pests.
But it just so happens to work on our bloodthirsty pest too.
Biologist and engineer Catherine Loudon is trying to copy the plant at the University
of California, Irvine.
She’s creating a synthetic material that can pierce bed bug feet
just like bean leaves do.
It’s not quite as effective as a real bean leaf, but she’s working on it.
In the meantime, bed bugs are still a step ahead.
So keep an eye out.
Spot them early and maybe you can get them before they get you.
No more parasites, you say?
No problem.
How about a tiny pygmy seahorse?
It’s a master of camouflage.
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