People Are Only Just Learning The 'Terrifying' Way Bed Bugs Mate And Spread

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Just when you assumed bed bugs couldn't get any worse, people discover how they mate, and it's truly the stuff of nightmares.

If you've ever experienced a bed bug infestation in your home or while traveling, you are aware of how fierce these tiny demon insects can be.

However, bed bugs frighten other bed bugs more than they traumatize people.

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The truth of the day is that males beg bugs mate through a sweet little process called "traumatic insemination," which you'll wish you had never known. And it's every bit as horrible as it sounds.

Bed bugs don't spend any time showing their stuff or getting to know their partner, in contrast to some animals that prefer to court each other before deciding to mate.

Instead, male bed bugs will use their hypodermic genitals to basically stab the female in the side of her body, then release sperm into the hole he has made in her body.

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Yep.

The female's body then allows the sperm to expand until it hits her ovaries.

It can be a fairly fatal ritual for female bed bugs because even though the female's body is capable of healing after the terrible "stabbing," the open wound is vulnerable to infection until then.

Thankfully, evolution has given the female species of bed bugs a tiny pocket of spermicide on their right side, the side that males prefer to stab most frequently.

The spermicide essentially puts an end to insemination and ensures that her body creates fewer eggs, which means fewer bedbugs for us!

When I inform you that the female bed bug will still lay between one and five eggs per day, or 200 to 250 eggs in her lifetime, despite her best efforts, your skin will start to crawl even more than it already has.

Bed bugs, like you and I, are unable to distinguish between male and female beg bugs.

Males also lack the strong exoskeleton and spermicide that protect against a stabbing incident if another male gets the wrong notion, in contrast to females.

Instead, they can warn a bed bug that is in search of the wrong mate by releasing an alarm pheromone.

Does anyone else suddenly feel the need to thoroughly clean their home and, if necessary, contact an exterminator?

This unpleasant fact was discovered by Reddit users, who were understandably disgusted.

Some felt compelled to share their own traumatic bed bug experiences, which, while not nearly as traumatic as what a female bed bug goes through, were still pretty unpleasant.

For instance, a bed bug victim wrote: "Had bedbugs in 2010. Horrible experience. You could never know whether they were gone or not.”

"Waking up in the middle of the night scratching yourself for months/years. It broke my brain, and I've been different ever since."

One person affirmed that the closest they had ever come to "a nervous breakdown" was during a bed bug infestation.

People have reportedly agreed that they are ready for bed bugs to become extinct due to their widespread fear and current violent mating rituals.

"There's not a lot of creatures I actively want to see go extinct, but bed bugs are one of them. They genuinely seem to bring no benefit to this world," read one comment.