Hardy bed bugs have reinvaded cities around the world.

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

• Cimex lectularius: is a species of Cimicidae (bed bugs). Its primary hosts are humans, and it is one of the world's major "nuisance pests". Both male and female Cimex lectularius feed on humans.
• Traumatic insemination: also known as hypodermic insemination, is the mating practice in some species of invertebrates in which the male pierces the female's abdomen with his aedeagus and injects his sperm through the wound into her abdominal cavity (hemocoel).
• Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane: commonly known as DDT, is a chemical compound originally developed as an insecticide. DDT was used in the second half of World War II to limit the spread of the insect-borne diseases malaria and typhus among civilians and troops. Due to its environmental impacts it was banned in the United States for agricultural uses in 1972. A worldwide ban on agricultural use has been in effect since 2004.
• Pesticide resistance: describes the decreased susceptibility of a pest population to a pesticide that was previously effective at controlling the pest. Pest species evolve pesticide resistance via natural selection: the most resistant specimens survive and pass on their acquired heritable changes traits to their offspring.

CREDITS

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Created by Henry Reich, with Alex Reich, Peter Reich, Rose Eveleth, Emily Elert, and John Guittar Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

Thanks to ScienceAlert for support: https://www.sciencealert.com/ and to TED-Ed for hosting Henry in their awesome New York City office while he did the drawings for this video!

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC https://neptunestudios.info

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REFERENCES

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Biology and Behavior: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7454.html http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/pesticides/pdffiles/bb-biology1.pdf http://www.falw.vu.nl/nl/Images/siva%202006_tcm19-30750.pdf

Bedbug History: http://entsoc.org/PDF/2011/AE-Potter-spring2011.pdf http://www.icup.org.uk/reports%5CICUP911.pdf

Insecticides and Resistance: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2537818/pdf/bullwho00516-0089.pdf http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/09/08/conservatives-blame-environmentalists-for-bedbugs.html

Treatment: http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef636.asp