What does a bed bug look like?

The adults can easily be seen with the naked eye.

Immature bed bugs are also visible to the naked eye, but the first stafes are much smaller than adults and translucent yellow-white in colour. The later of the 5 stages of nymphal instars look like small adults.

A bed bug is a small, flat, oval-shaped insect with a reddish-brown colour. Adult bed bugs are typically about 4-5 millimeters long (roughly the size of an apple seed).

They have six legs, two antennae, and a segmented body, but they don’t have wings.

Before feeding, they’re thin and flattened, but after a blood meal, they swell up and turn a darker reddish colour. After feeding a first nymphal stage looks like red pearls.

The nymphs (younger bed bugs) are smaller and lighter in colour, sometimes almost translucent, making them harder to spot.

Eggs are tiny, white, and about 1 millimeter long, often laid in sticky clusters.