Baffled Brits can’t inform distinction between mattress bugs and spiders, boffins declare
Dopey Brits can’t tell the difference between a bed bug and a spider.
Boffins have revealed just a fifth of the examples sent to checkers turn out to be the pests.
Out of 200 requests to identify the parasitic insects sent to bug boffin Dr Richard Naylor in 2023 just 40 were the real thing.
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Instead nature dunces confused booklice, cockroaches and carpet beetles with bed bugs as well as a host of other beetles, bugs and insects.
During a recent appearance at PestEx 2024 – a pest management exhibition – Dr Naylor said: “It is clear to see the effect Covid-19 and lockdown had on the number of bed bugs sent in.
(Image: Getty Images)
“At the height of lockdown in 2021, with travel and hotel occupancy so reduced, the percentage (correctly identified as bed bugs) fell to just 15.9%.
“However, bed bugs in the private residential sector were less affected, so as restrictions were lifted, they were quick to return to other sectors.”
Dr Naylor said fears over this summer’s Paris Olympics being besieged by bed bugs led to interest in the pests from around the world.
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
He explained: “For a month (last year), my phone was virtually ringing off the hook.
“I was doing three or four interviews a day, from such remote places as North Korea and Japan, who were concerned their athletes would be returning infested.”
The Bed Bug Foundation, an independent not-for-profit organisation based near Chepstow in Monmouthshire, offers a free bed bug identification service.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Last month we told how Dr Naylor lets bed bugs suck his blood at night in his quest to find their weaknesses.
Richard has studied bed bugs for over two decades and runs a laboratory breeding and researching them.
The data search comes as experts warn a harder-to-kill bed bug may be making its way around the UK.
They have been found in France amid fears they could transmit diseases to humans.
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