Sunday, March 25, 2018

Answer to Case 487

Answer: Cimex lectularis, or as Sheldon Campbell said, "Eew, bedbug!".

Eew, indeed. As someone who has been in hotel beds more than my own recently, I have perfected the 'bed bug check' of the hotel room. I have been fortunate so far NOT to have found any of these little pests in my hotel room. I am now on my way to Belize for a vector-borne disease capacity-building project and hope that the trend continues.

Thanks to William Sears and Florida Fan who shared some nice stories about C. lectularis, and its cousins, the bat bugs (check them out in the comments section).

Blaine also helpfully pointed out that you *might* be able to see the ecdysial scar on the pronotum, which would indicate that this is a nymph rather than adult female as I had originally indicated.  I believe he is correct and so I took our my description of gender from the initial case description.


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