Bedbugs roamed the Earth along with dinosaurs

    Bedbugs roamed the Earth along with dinosaurs

    Bed bugs knew dinosaurs and walked the Earth with them. An international team of researchers from various centers including the University Museum Bergen (Norway) and the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) have discovered that the annoying parasites have been on our planet for over 100 million years, previous and then contemporary. , therefore, of the famous T-Rex



    He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

    Bed bugs knew dinosaurs and walked the Earth with them. An international team of researchers from various centers including the University Museum Bergen (Norway) and the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) has discovered that the annoying parasites have been on our planet for over 100 million years, previous and then contemporary. , therefore, of the famous T-Rex.



    Le bedbugs, at the top of the list of the most unwanted human bedmates, are even "older" (evolutionarily speaking) than the bats, which appeared on the planet about 50 million years ago and so far believed to be the first mammalian hosts on Earth.

    Experts have been collecting samples from wilderness sites and museums around the world for 15 years, dodging bats and buffaloes in Ebola-infected African caves, as well as climbing cliffs to collect more from bird nests in Southeast Asia.

    They then compared the DNA of dozens of bed bug species to understand the evolutionary relationships within the group and their relationship with humans, then showing that their evolutionary history is much more complex than previously thought.

    But it is still not clear who they were "hosted" by in the absence of humans. Researchers believe that it is unlikely that they ate the blood of the gods Dinosaurs, as these parasites (and their close relatives) generally attack animals with "homes", be it a bird's nest, an owl's den, a bat shed or a human bed, a way of life that dinosaurs do not seem to have adopted.

    Therefore, not everything is perfectly known about bedbugs, but there does not seem to be any doubts about their "seniority". Just as it seems certain that since then different species have "branched out", some specialized on a single type of host (eg, unfortunately, the human being), others remained generalist (ie adapted to feed from different hosts). Most importantly, it turned out that some of the older species had already specialized, although it is not yet known who. This has, of course, favored their longevity.

    "To think that the parasites living in our beds today evolved over 100 million years ago and walked the earth side by side with dinosaurs was a revelation - enthusiastically reports Mike Siva-Jothy, study co-author - Proves that the evolutionary history of bed bugs is much more complex than we previously thought ”.



    However, the discovery is not only "academic": it could in fact help scientists to understand how these parasites managed to be so resistant to climate change and external conditions (or rather how they managed to adapt in all this time), and perhaps to study effective control strategies.

    “All of this will help us better understand how bedbugs evolved. the characteristics that make them effective parasites, which will also help us find new ways to control them ”continues the researcher.

    And not only that, because the authors also hope that these findings will help create an evolutionary history of an important group of insects, allowing us to understand how others became disease carriers and how they evolve to use different hosts. The purpose is to help control insects effectively and prevent the transmission of diseases of which they are carriers.



    The work was published on Current Biology.

    Read also:

    • Insect bites: how to recognize the 10 most common (photo)
    • Asian bedbugs: new invasion. How to keep them away

    Roberta de carolis

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