Bedbugs were the first true urban pest as humans moved out of caves and started forming cities, new research suggests.
A team led by two Virginia Tech researchers found that bedbug populations first lived on bats before some started plaguing Stone Age humans in caves.
But while numbers of bat-related bugs started to decline, populations of human bloodsuckers exploded as people started moving out of caves and forming settlements around 13,000 years ago.
Scientists compared the DNA of 19 bedbugs from the Czech Republic.
Nine were “associated with humans” while the rest were gathered from bat roosts.
Researcher Dr Linsday Miles said: “Both populations saw a general decline that is consistent with the last ice age (about 20,000 years ago).
“The bat-associated lineage never bounced back and it is still decreasing in size.
“The really exciting part is that the human-associated lineage did recover and their population increased.”
The world’s first cities date back to around 7,000 BC, as humans moved away from a nomadic life towards one built around settlements.
Çatalhöyük, in modern day Turkey, is about 9,000 years old and was home to thousands of people.
Uruk, in ancient Mesopotamia, is believed to have been home to around 60,000 some 5,000 years ago.
Bedbugs have thrived as human populations have concentrated in cities that have continued to grow in size over the centuries.
The number of bedbug-related local authority pest control callouts soared by 35% between 2022 and 2024, figures show.
In December 2024, the Standard revealed how the Home Office was forced to spend thousands of pounds on sniffer dogs to help get rid of a bedbug infestation at its headquarters in Westminster.
