Bed bugs are nasty parasites that feed off blood and to avoid an infestation, you should know what the parasites look like. If you visit a hotel or a motel and you do not know what the parasites look like, you may take them home with you. Bedbug infestation is increasing around the world since the use of insecticides to control them has decreased and more and more people are travelling, thereby taking bed bugs with them to new locations. Note that you will find bed bugs even in 5-Star hotels. To identify bed bugs, you must also know what their waste looks like and what their skin looks like.

One characteristic feature of bed bugs is that they do not have wings. This means if a parasites bites you are flies away, it is not a bed bug. However, bed bugs are good climbers and they crawl fast. You should therefore not hang your clothes in an infested place thinking that bed bugs will not get to them. The body of a bed bug is shaped like a watermelon seed it is flat and oval. Bed bugs are reddish brown and the brown becomes darker, sometimes blackish or deep red, the fuller they become. Some bed bugs are creamy white in color. Adult bed bugs shed their skin and become white or light tan, but the color changes to a burn orange or a deeper brown color with time.

Bed bugs can grow to be over one year old and they can attain the size of ¼ of an inch. This is not small by any standards and such bed bugs are in their dying stages. Older bed bugs also change appearance. You should not be scared when you look at photographs of bed bugs online or in books because such photos are magnified several times.

To learn what the parasite looks like, do research on them. There are many books on parasites, but the internet is the best source of information on bed bugs. Do research on the shape, on the color, and on other features. You should look at pictures to get a clearer image. Bed bugs have semitransparent skin and they usually leave some on sheets. They leave streak that are black or reddish in color on sheets. If you see reddish spots on your sheets, this is an indication that you have an infestation, but the spots can also be fecal.