They Crawl, They Bite, They Baffle Scientists

THE ICK FACTOR The lab of Stephen A. Kells, a University of Minnesota entomologist. Bedbugs are not known to transmit disease. Allen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

Don’t be too quick to dismiss the common bedbug as merely a pestiferous six-legged blood-sucker.

Think of it, rather, as Cimex lectularius, international arthropod of mystery.

In comparison to other insects that bite man, or even only walk across man’s food, nibble man’s crops or bite man’s farm animals, very little is known about the creature whose Latin name means — go figure — “bug of the bed.” Only a handful of entomologists specialize in it, and until recently it has been low on the government’s research agenda because it does not transmit disease. Most study grants come from the pesticide industry and ask only one question: What kills it?

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