The bugs were put in Petri dishes containing little tints made of different color paper. “However, these color experiments show that bed bugs.will select a harborage based on its color when moving in the light”.
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The researchers added that sunny colored suitcases, or those with hard exteriors, could help prevent the bugs from hitching a ride home with you.
The study is the first to show that bed bugs have color preferences. Twenty-nine percent of the time, the bugs moved toward the red tent, and 23 percent of the time they chose black.
The study claims the results are not definitive and bed bugs’ color preferences change with gender and age. The scientists do think, however, that this insight into a bed bug’s favorite color could one day enhance the efficacy of bed bug traps.
Initially, researchers thought they might prefer red because it’s the colour of blood but, after watching them, they believe it is because they exist in aggregations and hide in places where they think other bugs are.
Overall, bed bugs strongly tended to choose red tents over the other colors, nearly 29% of the time.
It turned out that red was the popular choice among the bugs followed by black while yellow and green seemed to be on their hate list. There were also yellow, white and green tents to choose from.
Researchers have discovered that bedbugs are attracted to or repelled by certain colours, paving the way for future studies to establish if certain shades of sheets could do so as well. They then plopped a bed bug in the middle, who had 10 minutes to decide which tent to hide in.
Bed bugs that were hungry cared less about color in general, and the different sexes had different colors that they favored over white. Likewise, “significantly more” eggs were found in red, blue, orange, and black tents than green ones.
“I think using colors to monitor and prevent bed bugs would have to be specifically applied to some sort of trap, and it would have to be used along with another strategy for control”, she said.
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According to the “Bugs Without Borders” survey conducted past year by the University of Kentucky and the National Pest Management Association, the top three places where pest professionals report finding bed bugs are apartments/condos (95 percent), single-family homes (93 percent), and hotels/motels (75 percent).
