Ben Davis 
May 16, 2019 
Core Bio
Current Event 12

Ferreira, Becky. “Bedbugs Menaced the Dinosaur Age Before Moving Into Our Mattresses.” The 
New York Times, The New York Times, 16 May 2019, 
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/science/bedbugs-dinosaurs-evolution.html.

For this week's current event I read Becky Ferreira’s article, “Bedbugs Menaced the Dinosaur Age Before Moving Into Our Mattresses.” In her article, Ferreira discussed the origin of the infamous bedbugs. She wrote, “The team’s findings, confirmed that bedbugs originated at least 100 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed Earth.” This notion discredits the former belief of bedbugs and can help scientists anticipate the bugs next moves in an era of climate change and expansive human activity. Bedbugs are tens of millions of years older than humans their origins as past believed cannot be related to homo sapiens. Ferreira recounts the travels of researchers around the world. She states, “In addition to requesting specimens from hundreds of researchers, the study’s authors personally collected bedbugs around the world. The team braved knee-deep piles of bat feces in Texas, donning masks when carbon dioxide concentrations became too high. In one Kenyan cave, they took care to avoid contamination from the deadly Marburg virus, which can be transmitted to humans from fruit bats.” Scientists believe that bedbugs are closely related to the Cimicidae family tree and the Hopi folklore. It was originally thought that bats were the first hosts of bedbugs. That belief has since changed, Ferreira wrote, “It’s now clear that the parasites were sustained through the age of dinosaurs by more ancient animals. But the identity of the earlier host, or hosts, remains a tantalizing mystery, as fossil evidence is scarce, Dr. Reinhardt said.”

The article by Becky Ferreira is very relevant in today’s society. People around the world are scared of the thought of bugs in your bed while you are sleeping. As the old saying goes don’t let the bedbugs bite. Bedbugs are often found across the countries. They have been famously found in many hotels and motels across the country. If bedbugs are found in your hotel it will most likely be shut down. Sometimes that shutdown will be permanent. This article is also a breakthrough in evolution. We learn that bedbugs are not related to homo sapiens and have been around since the time of the dinosaurs. 

Overall Ferreira did a great job with her article. There are many things she did well and there are things she can improve on to make her writing better. One thing Ferreira did very well was incorporate quotes from experts on the study. Ferreira quoted  Dr. Reinhardt. who wrote, “To make a prediction about the next species that hops onto humans, we would have to look into species that were originally specialists, but then started to expand their host portfolio.” One thing Ferreria should have included her review was how bedbugs affect people. While her article was good it could have been a lot better if it had information about bedbugs interacting with humans.