Bed bugs used to be associated with old hotels and dirty lodgings, but those days are over. Thanks to air travel and the Internet, bed bugs can hitch a ride anywhere. Anyone could get them, anywhere. Bed bug infestations are on the rise in New York – where I live. So I’ve installed insect curtains at my home. The bed bug has evolved. This past millennium has been great for them. They’ve managed to stick around by evolving in ways that have kept them ahead of human interventions. But, the bed bug hasn’t been able to stay under the radar (literally). There have been many attempts at eradicating these little bloodsuckers yet their resilience has helped keep them a common household pest. Bed bug evolution is a thermodynamic process. Perhaps we cannot elucidate the fundamental reason for this phenomenal development; but from the study of their structural and physiological features, we see clearly why escalation of size should be the natural outcome of selection for efficiency at all levels.

Bed Bug Evolution

Bed bugs have been around for a long time, and they’ve evolved over that time.

Bed bugs have been around for millions of years. They were feeding on ancient humans and dinosaurs long before the rise of modern human civilization, which means they’ve seen a lot of changes in their environment over that time. Bed bug evolution has resulted in some drastic changes in how these insects behave, but there’s one major thing that hasn’t changed: the way they feed on human blood.

Bed bugs evolved to use our blood as an energy source long before humans existed, so this is something natural to them. That being said, bed bugs have adapted themselves to live in close proximity with us since we’ve become their primary food source—which means when you’re sleeping at night and leave yourself open for attack by bed bugs, you’re essentially giving up your own blood supply!

The history of bed bugs has three distinct periods: their emergence, their decline, and their resurgence.

The history of bed bugs has three distinct periods: their emergence, their decline, and their resurgence.

The first period was one of emergence; it occurred before 1945. The second period was one of decline, which lasted from 1945 until 1970. The third period has been one of resurgence since 1970.

Bed bugs have been around for a very long time but were not recognized as a pest until the early 20th century when they became established in the U.S., Europe and Australia by hitchhiking aboard merchant ships from parts unknown (possibly China). Bed bug infestations were rare prior to World War II because most people had never seen them before or knew what they were if they did see them so it’s not surprising that there are few references to them during this period from any source besides medical texts written by physicians who treated patients with bites or skin rashes due to bed bugs while they slept at night without realizing what caused these symptoms until later years when more information became available through research done on insects like fleas that also have similar life cycles but don’t bite humans directly unless really hungry (hungry fleas will bite anything including cats!).

Bed bugs are associated with some of the earliest human civilizations, because they were attracted to the vermin that flocked around humans’ large settlements.

Bed bugs are associated with some of the earliest human civilizations, because they were attracted to the vermin that flocked around humans’ large settlements.

They didn’t just travel along with humans during this time in history; there’s also evidence that suggests bed bugs have been living alongside us for thousands of years. Researchers found bed bug remains in Egyptian tombs dating back over 3,000 years ago and discovered a fossilized specimen of Cimex lectularius that was trapped inside a piece of amber at least 110 million years old!

Bed bugs were first mentioned in Chinese literature as far back as 400 B.C., and were used in medical treatments.

Bed bugs were first mentioned in Chinese literature as far back as 400 B.C., and were used in medical treatments. The name “bed bug” is derived from the German word meaning bed bug, “bettwanze.”

Bed bugs have been around for hundreds of years, but it wasn’t until the early 1900s that they became a major problem in North America and Europe.

People used heat and smoke to get rid of bed bugs, but these methods didn’t really work.

Before bed bugs were eradicated with chemicals, people used heat and smoke to try to get rid of the pests. However, this didn’t work very well. Bed bugs are able to survive extreme temperatures—they can even survive being frozen. Plus, they are resistant to many insecticides like DDT and pyrethrins (which is why it took so long for scientists create a chemical that could kill bedbugs).

However, heat does work on some stages of the life cycle of a bug like a cockroach or roach; therefore, it was believed that heat would do something similar for bedbugs as well. Unfortunately for people who wanted an easy solution for getting rid of their infestations early on in history: heating up houses just wasn’t very practical because heating systems weren’t efficient enough yet!

So what did work? Scientists had observed that certain kinds of chemicals worked better than others when exposed directly onto live insects (or even dead ones).

By the 1800s, people started using chemicals to control bed bug infestations.

By the 1800s, people started using chemicals to control bed bug infestations. The first chemical used was arsenic, which unfortunately was not effective. Arsenic is poisonous and can be fatal if ingested in large quantities. The first effective chemical was pyrethrum, made from chrysanthemum flowers. It’s still used today as a natural pesticide but it doesn’t work against all strains of bed bugs and can be harmful if inhaled too often or in large doses by humans (or animals).

DDT helped eliminate the worst bed bug infestations in the 1940s and 1950s.

DDT was first synthesized in 1874, but it wasn’t used as a pesticide until 1939. DDT was effective at killing bed bugs because it dissolves in fat and stays in the body longer than other insecticides. Bed bugs excrete a protective coating to prevent pesticides from killing them, which explains why DDT was still effective against bed bugs for so long.

In the 1940s and 1950s, DDT helped eliminate some of the worst bed bug infestations around the world. In New York City alone, reported cases fell from over 1 million per year before World War II to just 300 by 1960. But there was one downside: DDT caused environmental damage when sprayed on crops or forests and could build up in people’s bodies over time (a phenomenon known as bioaccumulation). In 1972, a worldwide ban on organochlorine pesticides took effect under an international treaty known as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP).

DDT resistant bed bugs began appearing in 1946, but DDT was still widely used until 1972 when it was banned due to harmful side effects on bird populations and humans.

In 1972, the United States banned the use of DDT because it was found to have harmful effects on bird populations and humans. However, bedbugs struck back. In 1946, an insecticide-resistant strain of bed bug first appeared in New York City, making it impossible to control with conventional pesticides such as DDT. Today these resistant insects are still around and thriving despite our best efforts at eradicating them.

Scientists continued to come up with new pesticides after DDT was banned, but they weren’t always effective at controlling bed bug populations.

As bed bugs evolve, it may be time to look for another solution. Scientists continued to come up with new pesticides after DDT was banned, but they weren’t always effective at controlling bed bug populations. While some pesticides can kill bed bugs by disrupting their nervous system, others work by changing the way their stomachs digest blood—and there are even some that rely on chemicals that aren’t harmful to humans or pets. But in many cases these pesticides are becoming ineffective as well: many types of chemicals used against bed bugs have been shown to cause resistance in several species of insects over time.

Other factors contributed to the decline in bed bug infestations after 1945–increased use of window screens made it harder for them to get into homes, and more people had washing machines which they used on a regular basis–killing most of the bed bugs they already had!