Don’t Let The Bed Bugs Bite? Screw That! I’m More Worried About Them Trying To Mate With Me!

February 21st, 2008 | by Ginnie | (Visited 88,589 times)

Every now and then you see, read, or hear something that just makes you completely stop and ask yourself whether or not what you just heard is true.

In my case, it was this:

Male bedbugs mate by piercing through the female’s exoskeleton, bypassing her evolved genitalia and depositing his sperm directly into her womb. Female bedbugs have evolved something like a second set of genitalia to accommodate this practice, known as Traumatic Insemination.

Traumatic Insemination

According to Wikipedia:

Traumatic insemination is the mating practice of a few species of insects wherein the male pierces the female’s abdomen with his genitals and injects his sperm through the wound into her abdominal cavity. The most widely recorded example is that of Cimex lectularius, the bed bug.

It is believed the practice of traumatic insemination may have evolved as a means for males to circumvent female mating resistance. In response to the costs of traumatic insemination, the females of many species have developed various forms of paragenitalia at the site of copulation, separate from the genital tract. This system reduces the trauma by providing a guide for the male’s genitals which leads to the mesospermalege, from which the sperm migrate to the ovaries. The genital tract remains the means which the female lays fertilized eggs.

The practice of traumatic insemination is believed to be advantageous to the reproductive success of the male while at the same time imposing a cost on females which results in reduced lifespan and reproductive output. The successive woundings each require energy to heal, leaving less energy available for other activities. Also, the wounds provide a possible point of infection, further reducing female lifespan.

And what good would this article be without extremely large pictures of this very thing occurring?

Some more creepy images:

So for those of you that typically worry about things like scorpions, giant spiders, or other things that go bump in the night. Remember that there’s always something else to violently fear as you try and convince yourself that shiver you felt isn’t something trying to kill you. Or mate with you.

For those of you who are disturbingly curious, these two links may help with some further questions

Traumatic insemination and sexual conflict in the bed bug Cimex lectularius

Is Copulation Risky for Female Bed Bugs?

Tags: bedbug, bite, mate, creepy, funny