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Ep 117 Bedbugs: Bug-bitten and bedeviled

This Podcast Will Kill You

CHAPTER

The Evolution of Bed Bugs

The story would go that ancient bed bugs encountered bats and fed on their blood occasionally until occasionally became obligately as the bed bugs began to rely on these mammals for their food. That is how the story went for a very long time. But there's a paper from 2019 in current biology by Roth at all that puts it pretty plainly in the title, quote, "Bed bugs evolved before they're bat hosts" The other really cool thing is that when these bed bugs evolved a hundred million years ago, they were already pros at blood feeding.

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