Humanity's 'first true urban pest' has been biting for 60,000 years, study shows

Bed bugs have been biting humans since they emerged from caves around 60,000 years ago making them possibly the “first true urban pest,” a new study found.

As the old saying goes, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

But according to a new study, the bugs have been nipping humans since they emerged from caves around 60,000 years ago, making them possibly the “first true urban pest.”

Evidence of our symbiotic relationship with the blood-sucking parasites could now inform predictive models for the spread of pests and diseases as cities explode in population, researchers said in the study published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters.

Through genetic analysis, the researchers from Virginia Tech found that populations of both bat-related bed bugs and the ones that jumped over to humans continued to decline till the last ice age, about 20,000 years ago.

That's where the two lineages begin to diverge.