Meeting Abstract

58.2  Tuesday, Jan. 5  Walking with grappling hooks: bed bug locomotion LOUDON, C.; University of California, Irvine cloudon@uci.edu

Most insects have specialized organs on their feet that allow them to reversibly adhere to smooth surfaces, such as shown by flies walking on vertical glass window panes. Cave-dwelling insects are an exception, usually showing a loss of these specialized “sticky” organs. Bed bugs are thought to have evolved from cave-dwelling bat bugs, and similarly lack such tarsal organs. However, bed bug feet do have tarsal claws that presumably facilitate locomotion on rough or fibrous surfaces. In order to evaluate the ability of bed bugs to generate traction on different surfaces, bed bugs were videotaped at 125 frames/s as they ran across wood, glass, fibrous tape, painted surfaces, polypropylene, and high density polyethylene. On wood and fibrous tape, bed bugs showed an alternating tripod gait, with hardly any slipping of their feet on the surfaces. On the plastic surfaces, even in a horizontal orientation, bed bug feet slipped with almost every step, and there was little evidence for a tripod gait. Bed bugs walking on painted or glass surfaces showed an intermediate level of slipping, and a less synchronized tripod gait. Stride frequencies and duty factors also changed with surface type. With bed bug numbers skyrocketing in North America, and few effective chemical control methods, understanding the biomechanics of bed bug locomotion is important to inform the development of physically-based control methods.