Were you ever told, “sleep tight, don’t let the bat bugs bite”?
Most likely not but maybe you should have been.
Bat bugs are similar to bed bugs in many ways.
In this post, we are going to go over the similarities and differences between bat bugs and bed bugs.
Similarities Between Bat Bugs and Bed Bugs
Beautiful creatures aren’t they. The bat bug as you can see looks very similar to the bed bug.
Other than looks the bat bug has a lot of the same habits as bed bugs.
Bat bugs do not ride or stick to their host. They are actually known to lie and wait until the bats are asleep and then feed on them while they sleep. While bed bugs do this in your home, bat bugs do this in caves and wherever bats may be nesting. Just hope this isn’t your home.
Bat bugs, just like bed bugs will have a meal on a human host if the bats leave their nest for long enough. If you have bats in your home and you have them removed, you may not know that bat bugs were there, and you will need to take the proper steps in removing them as you will see later in this post.
Just like the bed bug, bat bugs are not known to carry any diseases when they bite. That is the good news. The bad news is they are just as big of annoyances as the bed bug, and they reproduce the same way.
Differences Between Bat Bugs and Bed Bugs
Even though the differences are not huge between bat bugs and bed bugs there are some things to note.
The first thing is the most obvious, and that is they prefer to feed on bats. If there are bats around, they will feed on them instead of another warm-blooded host. That is about the best news you can get if you find out you have bats and bat bugs in your home.
Bat bugs cannot reproduce without a bat host. So if you do not have any bats in your home, they will eventually die off. We do not recommend letting this go untreated since they will still bite you and your family and a bat might find its way back into your home. It isn’t worth the risk.
Bat bugs may look identical to bed bugs, but there is one small difference. This difference can’t be seen without a microscope, but the hairs on the thorax of a bat bug are longer than that of a bed bug. This is really the only known physical difference between the two.
Steps To Take To Remove Bat Bugs From Your Home
- First, you need to do is find a bat removal specialist. We have found the best bat removal specialists around the US (https://www.batremovalpro.com/dir/usa/) and Canada (https://www.batremovalpro.com/dir/canada/) who can take care of your bat problem effectively.
- You need to clean up the bat feces and guano in and around your home. Bat feces are known to transfer a disease called histoplasmosis to humans. This can be fatal if left untreated.
- Ask your technician and/or call an exterminator who can handle removing bat bugs from your home.
- Check your body thoroughly for about a week after to make sure no bite marks are showing. This will ensure that the bat bugs are no longer in your home.
Conclusion
Taking care of your bat problem early will help prevent your home from being infested by bat bugs. We really recommend you call one of our recommended bat removal specialists to get this taken care of. The longer you wait to get the bats removed, the more bat bugs can be in your home. Remember that bed bugs and bat bugs both reproduce very quickly so the longer they are in your home, the more there are. This makes it more difficult to completely remove them from your home and also risks more bites on human hosts once the bats are removed.
Not many people know that bat bugs exist and never think about treating for them once they remove bats from their home. Just to think later they somehow got bed bugs.
Bat bugs are known to be most prominent in the midwestern part of the United States. So if you have a bat problem and live in the midwest be sure you take extra precautions.
If you have had any interactions with bat bugs or want to tell your story comment below.
Sleep tight.