Overview

• Human-associated bed bugs diverged from a bat-feeding lineage about 245,000 years ago, likely beginning with Neandertal hosts.
• Human-linked populations recovered around 13,000 years ago with the rise of the first farming settlements, establishing bed bugs as the earliest household pest and predating rats and cockroaches by millennia.
• A second demographic surge occurred 7,000 to 8,000 years ago as major urban centers like Çatalhöyük and Uruk expanded.
• Genomic analysis of 19 specimens from the Czech Republic enabled researchers to reconstruct the divergent histories of bat- and human-associated bed bug lineages.
• Experts including University of Sheffield entomologist Michael Siva-Jothy caution that the study’s limited sample size and single-country focus warrant broader genomic comparisons to confirm these findings.