Bed Bug Photos
This page contains photos of signs you might find when looking for bed bugs (bed bugs, eggs, feces, cast skins, blood stains on sheets, etc.). You can click any of the photos and you will be taken to the flickr page. Click “all sizes” and then “large” to get the best view.
Obviously, you might find bed bugs themselves! But they can look vastly different based on life stage (there are 5 nymph stages and one adult stage) and whether they’ve fed recently or not. For reference, see Stephen L. Doggett’s bed bug life cycle photo, posted with his permission:
Note the life stages, the transparency of unfed nymphs, and the difference between the just-fed adult (top, elongated), and the not-just-fed adult next to it on the right.
Here are some even better photos of bed bugs feeding, including adults and nymphs (from L. Sorkin and R. Mercurio.)
Nymph photo from OfAlltheBeds:
Unfed first instar nymph (approx. 1 mm or 1/32″ long; taken by Sorkin and Mercurio, American Museum of Natural History):
This is the same first instar once it has fully fed (it will be larger now; taken by Sorkin and Mercurio, American Museum of Natural History):
To get an idea of the size, this is a 1st instar nymph feeding on Lou Sorkin’s finger. You can see them, but they are small:
Bassommeijer’s photo of an Argentinian adult bed bug in a book:
Waiting in Manhattan’s photo of an adult bed bug:
Several people have mistaken booklice for bed bug nymphs. Click here to see a comparison.
Other signs of bed bugs:
Cast skins: bed bugs cast their skin each time they grow. So you might find cast skins from a 1st instar nymph or a 5th instar nymph and the size will vary a great deal.
This is a cast skin (from Wikipedia).
This is a cast skin sitting on S’s arm when she tested her sensitivity to one. Note, it looks a lot like an actual bed bug.
Click here to see a photo of bed bugs on a mattress (from reader lincolnland).
Click here to see a series of detailed photos by Lou Sorkin of bed bugs harboring in and on a box spring, bed frame, and headboard.
The following photos can be enlarged for better viewing. Click on any of them, and you will be taken to the flickr page. Then click “all sizes” and then “large” to get the best view.
You might find blood stains on bed sheets or clothing you wear to bed. They can be as small as pinpricks or think streaks, or larger spotches (where a bug was squished or where a lot of blood was lost). This is an example, Lou Sorkin’s photo of a blood stain:
Originally uploaded by louento.pix
Lou Sorkin’s photo of a chair with bed bug nymphs, eggs, and fecal spots:
close up of lounge chair staples
Originally uploaded by louento.pix
Click the photo to get all sizes of the photo, and then select “large” for the best view.
Those are large furniture staples on a lounge chair. The eggs are 1/32 inch long.
Tape with bed bugs, eggs, and fecal spots, removed from a mattress (credit: Lou Sorkin):
Originally uploaded by louento.pix.
Good photos of fecal stains on a mattress here.
Photos of fecal stains on a hotel headboard and hotel mattress here.
Bed bugs with fecal spots (credit: Lou Sorkin):
Originally uploaded by louento.pix.
Click on photo, then “All sizes,” then “Large” for the full glory of bed bugs, eggs (full and hatched) and feces.
Click here for all entries on Bedbugger tagged “photos of bed bugs” (including bed bugs, nymphs, eggs, feces, etc.) Note: you have to click each individual title to see the photos.
All Rights Reserved by the photographers.
Thanks to Lou Sorkin & Randy Mercurio of the AMNH, S., Bassommeijer, and Waiting in Manhattan, for allowing us access to these photos which I am sure will help so many to find and identify bed bugs in their homes.
Comments for this page are now closed. Please post a message on our Bedbugger Forums if you have questions or need support. If you have suggestions or want to share your photos, please contact me.
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DDT was banned because the small birds would eat the insects that had been feeding on crops sprayed with DDT, then naturally larger birds would eat the smaller birds.The larger birds would get second hand poisoning and start to become ill and die. Like the Paregrin Falcon.
okay still not sure. but i do have a question. are they able to just travel right through layers of material very quickly. first i wrapped my mattress in plastic, and always put layers of sheets on , and then i just got some of that eggshell foam type stuff. where are they living ? where do i look for them? in the creaseas of the matress ? ( and i have a futon mattres that has a black almost velvet casing
spellcheck,
It looks like you’re continuing a conversation started elsewhere on the comments for other posts. The best thing is probably for you to post in our forums:
http://bedbugger.com/forum/
You can start a new conversation (thread) there and people will respond to you.
The short answer is they will crawl into anything, and hide anywhere they can. If the mattress has crevices, that’s a likely place. If there’s a tiny gap in the futon cover, they may crawl into it. You have to think like a small flat insect that wants to hide.
All I can say (with the deepest graditude) is thank you for this site. Me and my roommates have been dealing with bedbugs for the past couple of months now, not knowing what they were. Well, now we (or rather I, at the moment) know. Thank you again. MUAH!
Thanks, Adam. I hope your troubles are gone soon.
Please do come to the forums if you need support or have questions!
Well goddamn. I had suspected that we had bedbugs for a while now, but never experienced any, and only ever had what might have been a bedbug bite every once in a while.
Then, as I watch an episode of Dirty Jobs while eating an orange, I feel a sharp pain on the palm of my hand. I look, and there’s a tiny bug on it, sitting there. I grab a flashlight and watch it closer, and it leans down and takes another bite of my hand, equally painful. Thanks to your high resolution bedbug identification chart, I was easily able to identify it as the bottom young one.
The good news is that I identified it, the bad news is that it confirmed my worst fears.
Sorry, Vic.
The good news is that confirming the problem is a big part of the battle.
Please read the FAQs and come to the forums if you need support:
http://bedbugger.com/forum/
I am about to have a nervous breakdown from bed bugs in my apt. The housing authority only sprays and still with that they come from other apts and I can’t afford to move. I have ecemza and I am so upset and nervous all the time. I am a 62 year old woman who lives alone without family to help. I spray, I put everything in plastic bags, I did everything I could. Still these creatures invade and nothing is being done. Can anyone tell me what to do?
Hi bunny,
I am sorry you are going through this.
What city are you in?
If the housing authority does not have adjacent/attached units searched and treated if necessary, they will keep coming.
Since things are not getting any better, you might consider calling a local news station (who can shine light on the issue) or your elected local official (who can sometimes help shine light on an issue or expedite things with the authorities who should be dealing with this).
Please come to the forums if you need support or other ideas — more people will see your post here: http://bedbugger.com/forum
*******SOLUTION******
all of you changing mattresses and reading to stupid advices on this web site etc are wasting your time!! I found a solution the next day I was bitten. I captured one and experimented and found out that they are unable to climb slippery surfaces. I wrapped up my mattress around with a transparent tape (several levels) and since then haven’t been bitten a single time. or if you have a bed frame with legs, clean your mattress and box spring completely and vacuum first and then just wrap the legs of the bed frame only. it takes very little tape and they no longer will be able to climb up on you. Take care, Alex.
Alex,
I will ignore your rudeness, and for the sake of readers, will respond to your suggestion:
If bed bugs are living anywhere in the room besides the mattress, wrapping tape around your mattress will not keep bed bugs from biting you elsewhere in your home.
If bed bugs are living in or on the mattress or bed frame, wrapping tape around the mattress will not do anything to prevent bed bugs biting you in bed.
It’s possible you had a bed bug and caught it and that ended your bites. Most people don’t have just one, and see it, and catch it, but who knows.
However, I would advise others to be wary of your advice.
Believe me, if it were this easy, I would share the good news with everyone. We have nothing to gain by telling people bed bugs are hard to get rid of. We know it is hard from the experience of thousands of site visitors.
I’m sure this is somewhere on the page but i have a horrible bug phobia and looking at the pictures doesn’t help.. pretty sure they’ve been in my house (my bed) for a while.. i m talking at least 6 months to a year, except i only get a bite here n there (maybe one per 2 months) or sometimes a bunch in 1 night and then nothing for 2 months. Never had the luck of coming face to face with 1, never looked them up so didn’t really know what they looked like but when I saw it that was the 1st thing i thought of, tonight was the 1st time. I came home, sat on my bed and there is was crawling around on my sheet like he owns it. As you can imagine I freaked out but i squished it. Obviously that wasn’t the last of them. My question is how do I handle this? do the ‘bug bombs’ usually work? Someone told me no so i m curious as to how aggressively i should go about getting rid of these nasty creatures. I have friends who’s houses i sleep at from time to time but no bites for them so i’m assuming i didn’t bring them from their home. I examined my life and can’t figure out where they came from, is it possible they came from outdoors?
we had a problem last year in our apartment with bed bugs. i had no idea what was biting my then 3 year old daughter every night, and i could not find anything anywhere in the room and assumed it was spiders because the bite marks left such large welts on her. (she has exzema and very sensitive skin) i finally called the health department when we found the bugs hanging out around the ceiling molding. he said that it didn’t appear we had an “obvious” problem! 5 bugs in one day! and not a problem. but he did give us some very helpful extermination measures. our management took 3 and a half months from our first complaint to get a professional exterminator in to treat, and the landlord told me to just “hang tight” and wait. (wait while the bugs take over our lives i guess!) anyway, we took all the kids stuffed animals to the laundrymat and dried them on high heat for 45 minutes, washed and dried the bedding on high heat, vaccuumed the carpet like crazy with TWO fresh new bags, and the thing that really helped was spray everything down with rubbing alcohol! we sprayed the ceilings, corners, bedframes, dressers, and saturated the edging of the carpets in dollar store rubbing alcohol. we kept most of the stuffed anmilas out on the balcony tied up in clean trash bags while we treated, repeated the vaccuuming and sheet washing every week (nearly) and sprayed at least once a week, though not as thoroughly as that first time. with 8 weeks of home treatment, our problem was gone! by the time the professionals came 3 months later, the guy took over an hour to thoroughly examine and spray the entire apartment top to bottom and couldn’t find ANY evidence at all! he told us to keep up the good work and he would let the landlord know that our unit was (potentially, not legally beacuse they only did one treatment) “clear”. we have only seen one or two since, always an adult, and always after we’ve had the windows opened… the problem is still around the complex very badly. but, what i’m trying to say, is if you’re waiting for someone to treat or deciding if you actually have a problem, try spraying ubbing alcohol. it really worked for us when we combined it with the other measures. it apparently dries up the eggs, and i know (from direct testing) that it kills the live ones. good luck everybody!
thanks much! i ll try that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r05wWGd2Ep4
The bedbug blues… check it out
xo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r05wWGd2Ep4
The bedbug blues… check it out
xo
hello, im not sure if i have bed bug bites or flea bites but on my lower legs i have red bites they are quite large i have never seen one but on my sheet i think i have a blood stain but i cant be sure it could be my make-up or something any help please thank you x
I’m wondering if we have bed bugs? Every once in a while one of my kids wakes up with several bites. Then it doesn’t happen again for months. Several years ago my son woke up with 10-15 bites on his face and neck but it hasn’t happened to him since. More recently my daughter has awoke with bites on her arms and chest but this has only happened twice and in 2-3 month intervals. What else could be biting them? Thanks for you help.
Updated with the new
Cast Skin photo FAQ: photos of cast skins from bed bugs, compared with cast skins from dermestid beetles, carpet beetles, and German Cockroaches.
Hi, I just discovered bed bugs two nights ago and just made the connection 10 minutes ago as to what they were. I know you’ve said it’s rare, but I awoke in the middle of the night from the biting & found them all over – feels like a mosquito bite. I’m an extremely light sleeper, which might be why I feel them.
They’ve probably only been in my house for about 2 weeks, give or take. I’ll be calling the exterminator first thing tomorrow. My biggest fear is how quickly they might be able to spread. Do you have any insight on that?
Also, I do a lot of traveling and also stay at my boyfriend’s house every few days. I absolutely do not want to bring these to him. Any recommendations on how to make sure they don’t tag along on clothes, bags, etc.?
Thanks!
Hi Heather, you can look at the FAQ on not spreading bed bugs here.
If you have additional questions, please come to our forums.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that my son had some bug bites on his arms, and at first I thought mosquito bites and then I found a bug in his bed.I only found the one and I check everyday, I have looked up bedbugs and seen the pictures but it doesn’t look the same.But one of the tenants 2 buildings down from me was infested with them.And my son keeps getting the bites,but they don’t itch him and half the time he don’t notice untill I start checking.I don’t know what to do I am getting pretty parinoid about it.I have been spraying 91% alcohol all over to try to keep them away but is there anything else I can do?Thanks for any help.
Hi Jamie,
91% alcohol is only a contact killer — it kills bed bugs sprayed directly. If you do not even know if you have them, it is likely not doing anything to help. Even if you do have them, you’d have to spray them directly, and you would see them.
Although they may not have migrated from two buildings away, they are in your neighborhood, which means someone in your building might have them, someone might have brought them to school or your son might have been bitten at a friend’s home (IF his bites are from bed bugs).
It is hard to see bed bugs or find a sample. You could have your home inspected by a knowledgeable Pro with lots of bed bug experience. Keep in mind others in the family may not react to bites. Your son is not necessarily the only one being bitten.
If the bug sample you have might be a bed bug, you could send it away for identification or ask a local PCO to identify it. Keep in mind, finding other bugs does not mean you do not have bed bugs.
If you want more support or advice, please post in our forums: http://bedbugger.com/forum/
i still don’t know if i have bed bugs but i have been getting bit for about 2 weeks now. i have since found 2 differant bugs, one on my bed, you could see it’s blood through the skin, very tiny about the size of a small gnat. the second i found when cleaning out the room i’ve been getting bit in,it was on the bottom of the wall round brown the size of a big flea and it looks like it has wings. i have thrown out the bed already but don’t want to put the new one in untill i know if i have them or not this room is the only area of the house and i’m the only one getting bit i have looked for all the signs i checked the edges of the floor boards walls ceilings pulled out drawer lifted the edges of the carpet examined the old be can’t find anything other than those two bugs so how do i know if it’s safe to bring the new bed in?
Hi Marie,
Keep in mind that it can be very difficult to detect bed bugs, especially in the early stages of an infestation. A very experienced professional who knows what they are looking for may take 2 or 3 hours to meticulously search a home for bed bugs.
We cannot say if you have bed bugs or not. I recommend carefully encasing your new mattress in an encasement which is designed and tested to keep bed bugs out. Make sure you take care in putting it on, since they do rip (especially if they encounter sharp edges on a frame or box spring, which should be carefully taped where sharp bits are exposed).
If you encounter more bugs, try and trap them in a pill jar to have them identified. And please do not discard anything else — unless your problem is identified for certain. (Even then, you may not need to toss anything out).
Please come to the forums if you need support or feedback.
Hey I Think My Brother got bit by one
i was just curious i set up the new bed i only had enough money for one mattress cover at the time so my box spring isn’t covered only the mattress is, i plan to buy another one for the box spring next week so any bugs are onit by then when i put it on they will be trapped and eventually die right? and also it’s been about 2 nights back in my room with no bites if i do have bed bugs about how long does it take for them to get on the new bed and start biting again? and after how long of them not coming back should i asume they are gone or were never an issue?
If the new encasement is used properly AND is designed and tested to keep bed bugs in or out AND it is not ripped, it should trap them and they should die.
Keep in mind an encasement will not solve your problem. If you have bed bugs in other parts of the room or on other pieces of furniture or other stuff, they can still bite you. They can crawl onto anything (such as a new bed) any time.
Each individual bed bug will bite about once a week. IF you reacted to bed bug bites before, then if you go a month without any, you probably are bed bug free.
(This is assuming you had one or maybe not bed bugs at all. If someone had actual treatment to eliminate a known case of bed bugs, I would wait longer; Entomologist Rick Cooper suggests 55 days which seems like a nice span of time — assuming one reacts to bites.)
Marie, please click here if you want to continue the discussion. You can post a message in our forums and will get many responses in addition to mine.
Comments for this page are now closed. Please post a message on our Bedbugger Forums if you have questions or need support.
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