Why consumer grade sprays are becoming useless
Did you know that bed bugs were almost entirely irradiated from the United States on a few decades ago? Do you know why they are coming back in higher numbers than ever before? It’s because of DIY pest control and mismanagement of infestation, which only causes the problem to grow. Here’s another study that shows just why you can’t get rid of bed bugs without a professional.
The global resurgence in bed bugs over the past two decades could be explained by revelations that bed bugs have developed a thicker cuticle that enables them to survive exposure to commonly used insecticides, according to University of Sydney research published today in PLOS ONE.
Bed bugs are blood suckers that produce intense bites and cause significant financial heartache in the hospitality and tourism sectors. Understanding why they have again become so common may help develop new strategies for their control.Resistance to commonly used insecticides is considered the main reason for the global resurgence in bed bugs, according to University of Sydney PhD candidate, David Lilly, whose research focuses on the biological mechanisms that help bed bugs survive exposure to commonly used insecticides. Being ‘thick’ may be smart, for bed bugs at least!“The new findings reveal that one way bed bugs beat insecticides is by developing a thicker ‘skin’, said David Lilly. “Bed bugs, like all insects, are covered by an exoskeleton called a cuticle. Using scanning electron microscopy, we were able to compare the thickness of cuticle taken from specimens of bed bugs resistant to insecticides and from those more easily killed by those same insecticides.”Comparing the cuticle thickness of the bed bugs revealed a stunning difference: the thicker the cuticle, the more likely the bed bugs were to survive exposure to the insecticides.The new findings could explain why failures in the control of bed bug infestations are so common.Read more at:http://bit.ly/1ZdbHjR