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Bedbugs Could Have Been the First Urban Pest to Plague Human Cities, New Study Suggests
- International researchers reported on May 28 that bedbug populations surged around 13,000 years ago as humans formed the first cities.
- The surge coincided with early human urbanization while genetic analysis showed bedbugs had an ancestral association with humans dating back about 245,000 years.
- The team compared genomes of human- and bat-associated bedbugs, finding declining populations until the rise of urban settlements spurred a sharp increase in human-associated bedbugs.
- Researchers observed a dramatic population jump timed with human city-building, noting that bedbugs were likely the first urban insect pest, preceding cockroaches and rats by several millennia.
- These findings imply bedbugs adapted alongside humans in early cities, making them a key model to study pest evolution linked to urban environments.
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A genetic analysis of 19 Czech bedbugs revealed that these resistant parasites were on the verge of extinction during the last glaciation, but they resurfaced with the rise of the first cities. The study, published in Biology Letters, shows that while bat bedbugs continued to decline, those associated with humans multiplied their population 8,000 years ago, coinciding with the development of urban settlements such as Çatalhöyük in Turkey.The fir…
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Total News Sources12
Leaning Left1Leaning Right0Center4Last UpdatedBias Distribution80% Center
Bias Distribution
- 80% of the sources are Center
80% Center
L 20%
C 80%
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