An excellent youtube video from Bill Schutt (the author of Dark Banquet) featuring Lou Sorkin feeding his “pets.” We’re big fans of Lou Sorkin, and we can’t thank him (and all the other entomologists who do this) enough for enduring bed bug bites in the sake of research.

As Lou quips, “Without me, what are they gonna do?”
Indeed!

This is Bill Schutt’s book, Dark Banquet:

New paperback out 10/2009:

Many thanks to Lou and Bill Schutt for the informative video below!

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There’s a new book on blood-feeders (vampire bats, chiggers, ticks, and our old friend the bed bug, among others) called Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures.

New paperback out 10/2009:

I have not seen it yet but there’s a nice article on it in the New York Times Science section today, featuring our friend Lou Sorkin.

The article describes Lou feeding his bed bug colony.

It also contains this distressing comment about bed bugs:

The small, roachy-looking bloodsuckers have been spreading through the nation’s homes and hotels at such a hyperventilated pace that by next year they are expected to displace cockroaches and termites as America’s leading domestic pest insect.

We knew it was coming, but next year?

Apartment dwellers: consider how many homes you have lived in that have had cockroaches.

House-owners: how many homes have you been in that needed termite treatment?

We’re in for a rough future.Similar Posts:

• Westchester Realtor hears client’s concern over bed bugs
• 25% of hotel rooms have bed bugs? I don’t think so.
• Ohio fighting to get Propoxur for residential bed bug applications
• Watch out – DDT article below
• Today’s bed bug conference in Cincinnati