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Bed bugs are nocturnal parasites that love to feed on your blood. Their bite can cause rashes and prominent blistering plus redness. Bed bugs get their name from their propensity to live in the host’s bed, whether human or animal. These little bugs can be found virtually everywhere on earth where they can hide from an airport and a hotel and homes, cars and even I public transportation.

You probably didn’t know that bedbugs love to travel and will hitchhike onto your luggage and hop in your car to accompany you to your destination. They need five to ten minutes for a proper feed and while they can feed at night they are also opportunistic feeders and won’t walk away from a meal during the day. The can stay up to ten days without a meal after their last feed. It is during this time that they mate and lay their eggs as they digest their meal.

But you can mistake a few other bugs for bed bugs including

The bat bug

This is a close relative of the bed bug and looks like an exact replica except the former has shorter thoracic hairs compared to the bat bug. Also, bat bugs prefer to feed on bat blood although they will settle for yours and your pet’s blood. In the when deprived of their first preference.

Like bed bugs they are highly secretive and hide in similar places only venturing out when it is feeding time. They can also go for long periods of time without feeding and also don’t live on their hosts but hide in crevices around the bats only feeding on them when they need to.

The book lice

They won’t get in your hair but they can eat you out of house and home. They aren’t parasitic which is good news for most people but the fact that they can damage the structural security of a new construction and even eat away at plaster and wall paper in older homes means they can be pretty destructive.

If you have a book shelf with valued books especially older books like limited editions which can be expensive a book lice is a hazard to look out for. They will eat the books completely leaving them disintegrating. Like bed bugs they can form colonies quickly and expand in numbers.

Fleas

Fleas are tiny but upon close inspection they have a few similarities with bed bugs including feasting on the blood of humans and animals. They are parasitic in nature and also love to hide in dark areas. They have the rounder lower half of the body just like bedbugs with no discernable neck.

Another similarity is that they are both wingless. Fleas jump around in order to move from one place to another while bedbugs scurry hidden in the seams of the mattress and other sections of the furniture that offer shadow. Because fleas are so tiny they can remain unnoticed even when they are jumping around. Bedbugs have a reddish brown hue which is excellent camouflage because they tend to look like dirt.