Question by blah:
what is the difference between bed bugs and fleas?
my father is insisting that they are the same
but i dont believe so,
is any of them worse or more dangerous, if so, which one?
Best answer:
Answer by Lar
fleas are a small black hopping insect with a complete metamorphosis, where a bed bug is a different creature, it is one of the true bugs and has what is called a gradual metamorphosis changing from larvae to adult. The larvae of the flea feeds off of different organic matter including the fecal matter of the adults which is basically made of blood, where the nymphs of the bed bud will feed directly off of the host animal. The bed bug are small but will get a number of times larger than fleas. Fleas through out history have spread numerous diseases to man (such as the black plague in the middle ages)… bed bugs spread no disease but can cause a dermatitis on people who get sensitive to their bites
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search on wikipedia
Bed bugs… really just a generic name for anything living in your bed, o and trust me on this one- there are a lot of things that live in there. I do not know the specific name for the microscopic organisms that live in your bed, but they are everywhere humans are. They eat the dead skin cells that rub off your body or drop off on their own by the thousands everyday. This isnt really alarming at all seeing as how there are also bugs that live in your eyelash follicles and eat the dead skin cells and oil that are there. Bed bugs arn’t dangerous and the eyelash ones arn’t either but fleas can spread disease such as lyme disease. Fleas did spread the black plauge from rats to humans after the rats had been infected by mosquitos, so they can be fairly dangerous. Have fun trying to go to bed tonight =p.
Bedbugs and fleas are both insects, so they both have 3 body segments and 6 legs, but that hardly makes them the same thing anymore than dogs are the same thing as cats. These insects occupy different places in the biological scheme of things. Bedbugs don’t take up residence on their hosts, while fleas do. They have totally different lifecycles (fleas spend part of their lives outside, for example). Bedbugs feed on skin scales that we constantly shed, while fleas eat specks of dried blood. You might want to Google these two insects, just so you can study the differences – you won’t have any difficulty finding quite a few. That might be enough to convince your dad, too.
different animals!
Fleas can make some people sick.
I don’t know about bed bugs… but I know they are hardy little buggers.
THEY ARE NOT THE SAME ANIMAL!!
A bedbug (or bed bug) is a small nocturnal insect of the family Cimicidae that lives by hematophagy, or by feeding on the blood of humans and other warm-blooded hosts
Flea is the common name for any of the small wingless insects of the order Siphonaptera. Fleas are external parasites, living by hematophagy off the blood of mammals and birds.
Bites:
In most observed cases, bites consist of a raised red bump or flat welt, and are often accompanied by intense itching. The red bump or welts are the result of an allergic reaction to the anesthetic contained in the bedbug’s saliva, which is inserted into the blood of its victim. Bedbug bites may appear indistinguishable from mosquito bites, though they tend to last for longer periods. Bites may not become immediately visible, and can take up to nine days to appear. Bedbug bites tend to not have a red dot in the center such as is characteristic of flea bites. A trait shared with flea bites, however, is tendency towards arrangements of sequential bites. Bites are often aligned three in a row, giving rise to the colloquialism “breakfast, lunch and dinner.” This may be caused by the bedbug being disturbed while eating, and relocating half an inch or so farther along the skin before resuming feeding. Alternatively, the arrangement of bites may be caused by the bedbug repeatedly searching for a blood vein. People react very differently to bedbugs, and individual responses vary with factors including skin type, environment, and the species of bug. In some rare cases, allergic reactions to the bites may cause nausea and illness. In a large number of cases, estimated to 50% of all people, there is no visible sign of bites whatsoever, greatly increasing the difficulty of identifying and eradicating infestations.
Disesase:
Bedbugs seem to possess all of the necessary prerequisites for being capable of passing diseases from one host to another, but there have been no known cases of bed bugs passing disease from host to host. There are at least twenty-seven known pathogens (some estimates are as high as forty-one) that are capable of living inside a bed bug or on its mouthparts. Extensive testing has been done in laboratory settings that also conclude that bed bugs are unlikely to pass disease from one person to another. Therefore bedbugs are less dangerous than some more common insects such as the flea.
Bed Bugs are not the same as fleas, fleas hop and are very agile, bed bugs are like louse and crawl, they also hide in flock pillows or mattresses, etc. Fleas on the other hand can migrate from person to person and also breed in carpets. human fleas are not the same as dog fleas or cat.
bedbugs… Order hemiptera
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classification/Cimicidae.html
http://www.bugyman.com/slbdbug2.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/04/04/bedbugs_wideweb__430x322.jpg
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Bed-bugs-back-with-a-bite/2005/04/05/1112489461430.html
flea..Order Siphonaptera
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classification/Siphonaptera.html
http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/pendock/files/2008/05/flea-1.jpg
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/uniramia/siphonaptera.html
not the same, not even close….
both are nuisances… to a small animal, fleas are deadly… much less so to humans… bedbugs, too… the ammount of blood taken ,unless one is very small and mobbed nightly, is not a lot….
“Bed bugs are not believed to carry infectious microbes; however, they do bite and suck blood from humans. In the act of feeding on human blood, they may inject their own saliva into the bite area, leading to a localized area of itching and swelling. If scratched, the bite areas can become infected.”
“Adult fleas are not only a nuisance to humans and their pets, but can cause medical problems including flea allergy dermatitis (FAD), tapeworms, secondary skin irritations and, in extreme cases, anemia.”
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2081.html