And these nasty little creatures can spread faster than the ordinary variety bed bug, causing all the same havoc and threat of widespread infestation throughout Florida and the South.
“This could mean that this species would develop more quickly, possibly cause an infestation problem sooner, and also could spread more rapidly,” Brittany Campbell, a UF doctoral student in entomology, said in a media release.
Campbell and her colleagues at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences confirmed the tropical bed bug's reemergence, which they recently documented in the journal Florida Entomologist.
No one had confirmed the tropical variety of bed bug in Florida since the 1930s and 1940s. But in 2015, a family in Merritt Island, near the Ulumay Wildlife Sanctuary, reported the tiny unwanted creatures had infested their home.
The UF scientists confirmed the bugs were the tropical species, but so far, Brevard County has the only confirmed case in Florida.
"I personally believe that in Florida, we have all of the right conditions that could potentially help spread tropical bed bugs, which is the case in other southern states,” Campbell said. “As long as you have people traveling and moving bed bugs around, there is a real potential for this species to spread and establish in homes and other dwellings.”
Campbell coauthored the recent journal article about the tropical bed bug discovery in Brevard.
It's unknown how the bed bugs got here, but Campbell suspects it could have been via Port Canaveral.
"A lot of pests that do get into Florida, a lot of them do pop up in ports," she said. "We don't really know where these bed bugs were introduced from."
The UF researchers urge the public to send them samples of suspected bed bugs for identification, to try and nip the bug's spread in the bud.
The common bed bug lives throughout the United States and the globe, typically in more temperate climates. Before the 1990s, it kept at low levels for 50 years, via widespread use of DDT and other pesticides, the UF researchers say.
The bed bugs eventually bit back, building resistance to pesticides and resurging in the late 1990s.]
http://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/nat...ears/93582684/
The tweet went viralish
https://twitter.com/TCPalm/status/796731368231342080
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