Bed Bug Lifespan & Life Cycle: Understanding Their Behavior

Although it may seem bed bugs can never die, these reddish, oval-shaped bloodsuckers do not have a long lifespan. They are resilient, though, living in filthy conditions or without food--you or your pet's blood--for months.

Females

• Sticky clumps of bed bug eggs in cracks are surefire signs of an infestation. A female lays as many as 12 eggs a day and upwards of 200 eggs during her lifetime.

Nymph

• When the bed bug emerges from its egg in about a week, it is called a nymph. It starts off virtually colorless, according to the University of Florida Institute of Food and Ag Sciences, and each time it feeds, it turns red.

Stages

• When the nymph feeds, it sheds its skin and moves onto the next of five nymph stages, which means the little bed bug will have molted four times before it becomes an adult.

Evolution

• At nearly 90 F, a nymph reaches maturity in three weeks, but at temperatures lower than 70 F, it could take four months to mature, according to the Ohio State University Extension Office.

Adulthood

• Bed bugs can live from 10 to 18 months. They can live for longer than a year in vacant buildings without food, according to Bed Bug.org, a clearinghouse for information on these insects.