SCIENCE STUDENTS SPECIAL : BITING BEDBUGS

BITING BEDBUGS : From Stone Age to present day - keeping us from sleeping tight.

When it comes to successful relationships, there's nothing quite like the long, long marriage between bedbugs and humans, even if the affection goes in one direction.

The species of bedbug that feeds on us while we slumber is monogamous with humans ; it does not shack up with any other species.

Despite the ick factor, the insect does not transmit disease, nor does it cause harm beyond the mild irritation where its needlelike mouth pierces the skin.

That relationship has been going on for longer than previously known.

According to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, the bedbug's long affair with humans began about 245,000 years ago.

The insect strayed from the cave-dwelling bats that had been its sole source of sustenance and discovered the blood of a Neanderthal, or some early other human, that had bedded down in the same cave.

From that point on, scientists say, bedbugs diverged into two distinct species : one that lived off bat blood, and one that fed on humans.

'' You're not going to find a bedbug in your garden,'' said Warren Booth, a professor of urban entomology at Virginia Tech. '' They are completely reliant on us to spread.''

After a decline that accompanied early man's nomadic existence, the human-dependent bedbug population began to explode about 13,000 years ago, the study found.

That surge coincided with humanity's shift to sedentary living in Europe and the Middle East.

The World Students Society thanks Andrew Jacobs.