One time we stayed at a very nice hotel in Seattle and I came away with BITES ALL OVER my body! I was 100% convinced it was bedbugs. When we got home, I washed everything…used sterile wipes on our luggage and tried to put the whole, awful trip out of my memory.
But now CSI labs have a new partner in crime-fighting. Turns out bedbugs retain the blood they have feasted on for THREE DAYS. It can be extracted and used to identify a human DNA profile. AND, if they have feasted on more than one human, the DNA of multiple human hosts can be extracted and identified.
This evidence could be particularly useful in placing a victim and perpetrator at the scene of the crime or another specific location where the bedbug was found. To put a finer point on it, when I say the bedbug is a partner, that might not be the best choice of words. Turns out bedbugs have only one life to give to their crime lab. In order to extract the blood evidence, the bugs must be drowned in ethanol and then vigorously “homogenized!”
You can read all about this fascinating and gory forensic biology and entomology upgrade here.
