Nov 8, 2011 – Getting The Right ID
QUESTION:
How can I tell the difference between bed bugs and fleas?
ANSWER:
I can answer this question in 2 different ways, depending on how I interpret what you are asking. The more obvious would be that you are asking for actual differences to distinguish a flea from a bed bug, and the answer to this would be to direct you to the Pest ID resource on PestWeb to view some images of each of these blood feeding pests. They really look nothing alike. Fleas are smaller and are compressed from side to side, while bed bugs are larger and flattened from top to bottom. If you have the actual specimens on hand there should be no mistake. Fleas also hop to move while bed bugs only walk. Fleas tend to have a black coloration while bed bugs are white as the early nymph and reddish brown as the later nymphs or adults.
What you may be asking instead is how to distinguish an infestation of some biting pest as either bed bugs or fleas, or how to tell which pest is present based upon the "bite" marks on people in that infested place. For that second possibility I can only say that we, in the professional pest control industries, should NEVER identify a pest problem based only upon the presence of red marks on someone's skin, nor take the customer's word for it that they are actually being bitten by something. It is our responsibility to sample until we confirm the presence of some arthropod that could be biting, or on the other hand to confirm that nothing is present and therefore there is no reason to spray a single drop of insecticide. I have a collection of wonderful letters sent to the local university or to local pest management companies, from people who truly believed they were being bitten or otherwise by some pest, but who clearly were suffering from Delusions of Parasitosis. A couple of those letters would make Steven Spielberg's skin crawl, and to get involved in the mental issues of these kinds of people by spraying toxins in their home would be a terrible mistake.
So, avoid making a diagnosis based only upon symptoms claimed by the customer. Instead, go to a monitoring program initially to determine just what is actually present. The customer may actually be getting bitten by some arthropod, but they may decide in their mind that it is rat mites or some other specific pest, and your monitoring and sampling might turn up something entirely different. If you go ahead and treat for mites when the problem is fleas, or treat for fleas when the problem is bed bugs, you are doomed to failure. Proper identification means capturing some of the bugs present, examining them with the proper magnification and ID keys, and then going ahead with the proper method for eliminating them.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
How can I tell the difference between bed bugs and fleas?
ANSWER:
I can answer this question in 2 different ways, depending on how I interpret what you are asking. The more obvious would be that you are asking for actual differences to distinguish a flea from a bed bug, and the answer to this would be to direct you to the Pest ID resource on PestWeb to view some images of each of these blood feeding pests. They really look nothing alike. Fleas are smaller and are compressed from side to side, while bed bugs are larger and flattened from top to bottom. If you have the actual specimens on hand there should be no mistake. Fleas also hop to move while bed bugs only walk. Fleas tend to have a black coloration while bed bugs are white as the early nymph and reddish brown as the later nymphs or adults.
What you may be asking instead is how to distinguish an infestation of some biting pest as either bed bugs or fleas, or how to tell which pest is present based upon the "bite" marks on people in that infested place. For that second possibility I can only say that we, in the professional pest control industries, should NEVER identify a pest problem based only upon the presence of red marks on someone's skin, nor take the customer's word for it that they are actually being bitten by something. It is our responsibility to sample until we confirm the presence of some arthropod that could be biting, or on the other hand to confirm that nothing is present and therefore there is no reason to spray a single drop of insecticide. I have a collection of wonderful letters sent to the local university or to local pest management companies, from people who truly believed they were being bitten or otherwise by some pest, but who clearly were suffering from Delusions of Parasitosis. A couple of those letters would make Steven Spielberg's skin crawl, and to get involved in the mental issues of these kinds of people by spraying toxins in their home would be a terrible mistake.
So, avoid making a diagnosis based only upon symptoms claimed by the customer. Instead, go to a monitoring program initially to determine just what is actually present. The customer may actually be getting bitten by some arthropod, but they may decide in their mind that it is rat mites or some other specific pest, and your monitoring and sampling might turn up something entirely different. If you go ahead and treat for mites when the problem is fleas, or treat for fleas when the problem is bed bugs, you are doomed to failure. Proper identification means capturing some of the bugs present, examining them with the proper magnification and ID keys, and then going ahead with the proper method for eliminating them.
View past Ask Mr. Pest Control questions.
