A New Way to Keep Bed Bugs Away? - Bed Bug Treatment Houston

New research has been done regarding another method of repelling bed bugs. The University of California, Riverside is responsible for the discovery that the skin bed bugs shed might contain chemicals that they avoid after the fact. If more research proves this to be true, another way to keep bed bugs away could exist!

Using bed bug shed skins to combat the pest

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have discovered the shed skins of bed bugs retain the “obnoxious sweetness” smell often associated with the pests, a finding that could potentially be used to combat infestations of the insects.

Bed bugs shed their skins, known as exuviae, as they grow. Four pheromone compounds known as aldehydes are consistently found in the shed skins.

The UC Riverside researchers found that the shed skins retain those compounds in the glands and gradually dispense them over time. They also found that living bed bugs are likely to settle down in the vicinity of the shed skins by sensing these compounds.

The findings could have significant implications for pest management industries, which can use some of the chemical / mechanical characteristics of the bed bugs’ shed skin to develop small, inexpensive monitor traps to catch living bed bugs at their early stages of infestation.