Baby Bed Bugs (Looks, Size, Colors, Bites)
Baby bed bugs (simply nymphs) are the bed bugs going through the initial five stages of their life-cycle. They’ll be straw or light brown (before taking a blood meal) and the size of a pinhead. Bed bug (Cimex lectularius) infests over 20% of American homes.
It’s essential to control the bed bugs nymphs in your house, bed frames, or mattress encasements. Check what bed bugs look like?
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First, check out the below video. It’s a quick preview of how bed bugs look like – luckily, this video shows the bed bugs in all their life-stages – including the baby bed bugs-nymphs.
What Do Baby Bed Bugs Look Like?
The bed bug species that mainly attack human beings are the Cimex hemipterus or the Cimex lectularius. Adult bed bugs (females) lay about 250 viable eggs.
The baby bed bugs-nymphs pass through 5 juvenile “nymph” stages as they molt towards attaining the adult stage – the wingless, reddish-brown, blood-sucking insects.
Sidenote: Always spray against bedbugs, fleas, or roaches on used clothes and furniture before you get them into your house. But also, check this guide on how to use steam heat treatment, rubbing alcohol, ammonia, bleach, or Lysol to kill bed bugs
1. Appearance and Size
In size, Nymphs are in between the bed bug eggs (1 mm / 0.09 inches) to the size of an adult bed bug (4.5 mm / 0.18 inches).
However, immature bed bugs are tiny in size (definitely) but will grow bigger as they suck more blood and molt.
It’s important to note that it’s possible to see nymphs with the naked eye. An adult bed bug will be something like an apple seed in size (about 4.5mm), and it is red or brown.
The baby bed bugs-nymphs add about 0.5 mm of their size at each molting stage (of the five juvenile “nymph” stages). However, do not confuse a cluster of bed bug eggs (with each measuring about 1 mm) with the nymphs.
At the 5th nymph stage, the baby bed bug is almost equal to their adult counterparts. But for more clarity, check out the video (Courtesy of Sandy Honess) and see how you can differentiate the nymphs from the adult bed bugs.
2. Shape and Color
Nymphs have an oval just like their counterparts. So, the main difference between the nymphs and the adult bed bugs is just the color. After hatching, nymphs will be yellow-white (almost colorless) but will turn reddish or brown as they feed on blood.
Before they suck blood, bed bugs are relatively thin and hence will easily slip through cracks and crevices into mattress covers and furniture spaces where they hid, waiting to lay eggs or attack their next host.
Do baby bed bugs Jump or Crawl?
First things first, the baby bed bug, just like the adult bed bugs, can’t fly or jump. However, these bugs have a breakneck speed when running on a flat surface, ceilings, walls, and floors.
To be specific, bed bugs will clock about 4 feet every second. I am wondering if even adult bed bugs can fly? Do Check this Guide for more details.
Nevertheless, compared to insects like fleas that can hop and jump around, bed bugs can only crawl or run very fast on floors and other surfaces. Nothing would qualify as an adventure in the movement of bed bugs.
Further, they’ll only crawl low in the ground because of the bug’s wide body and short legs. However, despite moving very fast, they would not quickly significantly exceed their regular crawling speed.
Will bed bugs climb up rough surfaces? Bed bugs, including the baby bed bugs-nymphs, have small hooks on their legs. Therefore, in these structures, the bugs hold onto pores, cracks, or crevices of different rough surfaces and quickly climb up metals, plastics, walls, clothes, or timber. On the flip side, bed bugs cannot climb up on smoother covers such as glass and porcelain.
Can bed bugs push off serious obstacles? Equally, the bed bugs won’t do great in moving in thick carpets, hair, or some busy terrain because of their wide-body and short legs.
Further, the short legs are also too frail to push heavy objects aside, incredibly when moving in thick hair, carpets, or grass. Therefore, they would opt to climb up the items and drop on the other side or circumnavigate them in such cases.
Do Baby Bed Bugs Bite?
Immediately after hatching, the nymphs from the eggs (nymphs) need to suck a pint of human (of your pets’) to allow it to grow, live, and molt into other lifecycle stages.
Check the nymphs (Nymphs) – Color, Pictures, Movement. Side note: Bed bug eggs take two weeks to hatch, after which the nymph moves through the five molt stages during which they must feed on blood.
Therefore, the short answer is that just like the adult bed bugs, the baby bed bugs-nymphs bite human beings for blood. Interestingly, the nymphs will bite humans (and such blood) more often due to their growth requirements. However, the bed bug bites will disappear with 1-2 weeks.
But how do the bites from nymphs look like? Well, bites from the nymphs will look just like those from the adult bed bugs. As a reminder, such bites leave reddish bumps on your skin and are itchy too. Equally, nymphs will mainly bite your shoulders and arms – this can be compared to fleas that mostly bite the feet and ankles.
Where can baby bed bugs be found?
Despite that bites from bed bugs could be a significant sign of their presence on your premises, you must know how and where the bugs tend to hide so that you can easily control them.
First things first, the signs to look out for include blood spots or fecal matter (colored like rust) on your bedding or mattress.
Sadly, human beings can carry bead bugs and their nymphs in their clothes from one house to another. For example, the bugs may hitchhike your bags, purses, clothes, and luggage. However, they do not love hairy pets such as cats and dogs.
But of course, you know that the nymphs can also trigger skin irritation and transmit diseases. Therefore, the best solution when you believe you have a bed bug infestation is to hire the services of a bed bug exterminator or spray on the adult or babies of bed bugs directly.
