Bed Bugs Emerge As Humanity’s Oldest Urban Pest

Researchers at Virginia Tech have discovered that bed bugs became humanity's first true urban pest after some hopped from bats to Neanderthals around 60,000 years ago. Genetic analysis of two bed bug lineages—one bat-associated and the other human-associated—revealed that both populations declined during the Last Glacial Maximum, but only the human-associated lineage recovered and expanded as humans transitioned out of caves and formed early settlements about 13,000 years ago. This human-associated bed bug population growth parallels human societal development and urbanization, making bed bugs older domestic pests than rats and cockroaches. The bat-associated bed bug lineage, in contrast, continued to decline. Understanding this long-term evolutionary relationship can help predict pest and disease spread linked to urban population expansion. These findings highlight the co-evolution of humans and pests, with bed bugs persisting as a major nuisance for tens of thousands of years.