Harmful Insects, Fighting with Insects

Bed bug, Tick, Flea, Pediculus

Bed bug is from cimicidae family of Heteropteras.

Although there are 75 types of them, we mostly see "cimex Lectularius".

They suck the blood of human and birds. The length of adults is around 4-5 mm, and they are flat and oval and in reddish dark color.

They excrete a repellant odor. It may take for weeks to absorb the blood they sucked, and a bed bug may live for about one year after feeding once.

Bed bugs causes redness, blistering and irritation in the places they bite. They do not carry contagious diseases.

Tick  is an external parasite sucking blood and not having any eye, from arthropodal Arachnida class.

They are particularly known causing spreading of diseases with the birds.

They suck blood of creatures like human, sheep, dog, cat, camel. They are known as “original tick”. They are reproduced with eggs. The female ones lay their eggs among the garbage, leaves or animal hair.

Larvae live on the lizards, as the adults live on the mammalians like human, sheep, bovine, dogs. A female one may be inflated up to 11-12 mm, with the bodies in the form of chest and bag.

There are four couples of legs in the adults. They have hooks and suckers at the ends of the legs.

They stick the skin conveniently and suck the blood with their hoses.  They leave the hosts after swelling and climb the trees or grasses.

The ends of the front feet are specialized for touching and smelling. They fell on an animal passing under the tree in the forest, stick its skin and suck its blood, by inserting its hose in it.

Currently 889 types of ticks are known. All of the ticks are not harmful, parasites and blinds.

The tick types using bovine and dogs have eyes. They are harmful since they cause contamination of many disease to human and pets, and they produce many bacteria.

Ticks carry very dangerous diseases which may cause death in the end.

The ticks may carry viruses, bacteria and parasites named as protozoon and rickettsia, and they transfer such serious infection factors to the human and animals they sucked.

Flea is small, wingless bugs sucking blood from the class of Siphonaptera. They like hot and warm climate regions.

They stick on the skins of human, mammalians and rodents thanks to their special body shapes, and cause contamination of many diseases as they change the host.

The lengths of bodies of the adult ones shall change between 1-10 mm. the life periods is between a couple of weeks and one year. It may jump up to 200 times of their heights thanks to their strong legs.

This long leg and flat body parasite will be reproduced with egg, larva, pupa and adult circulation.

Pupas find a mammalian or a bird to stick with as soon as they will come out their cocoons. Some of the fleas may live only certain type of host, as other types may live in various types of hosts.

Fleas (Xenopsylla cheopsis) playing the leading role in contamination of plague to human are liable for death of nearly one fourth of the population in Europe in the Medieval Ages.

The rodents (in particular mice)  to which plague is contaminated are not strong and die fast.

Fleas leaving the death host may reach human and cause contamination of this disease to them.

Fleas also cause contamination of the diseases like typhus and tularemia in addition to plague.

Pediculus are small, wingless, flat parasites changing from white color to black, from hthiraptera family having around 3300 types.

The members of subclass Anoplura including the human head louse and this subclass selecting only the mammalians as the hosts is called “real head louses”

All head louses other than human body head louses live their entire life in the body of the host. Only the body louse stay in the garment twists.

Female pediculus lay the eggs individually or in clusters in the deep of the hairs.

One female pediculus may lay 5000 legs in two months. Pediculus generally does not change its host.

They mainly cause wounds and secondary infections in the skins of the pets if they reproduce excessively on their skins.

The most common pediculus form seen on human is Pediculus humanus. They are called differently as per the area they live in the body.

There are Pediculus humanus capitis, Pediculus humanus humanus, and Pediculus humanus pubis.

Pediculus contamination may cause secondary infections due to rash and irritation of the skin and the inflammatory skin disease called impetigo in the children.

Also the Pediculus humanus humanus is a carrier of the microorganisms causing trench fever and recurrent fewer.