Pest Management Professional, June 2016
Continued From Page 22 Union College in Lincoln Neb conducted the study In an interview with Josh Lancette of ESAs online publication Entomology Today study co author Dr Corraine McNeill explained that the team originally thought the bed bugs might prefer red because its the color of their favorite meal blood However after doing the study the main reason we think they preferred red colors is because bed bugs themselves appear red McNeill said So they go to these harborages because they want to be with other bed bugs as they are known to exist in aggregations In the study choice variations existed among males and females whether the bugs were hungry or fed their age and whether they were in groups or alone The authors theorize the bugs avoided yellow and green because those colors resemble brightly lit areas I always joke with people Make sure you get yellow sheets Dr McNeill told Entomology Today But to be very honest I think that would be stretching the results a little too much Dr McNeill says she believes using colors to monitor and prevent bed bugs would have to be specifically applied to some sort of trap which would have to be used along with another control strategy I dont know how far I would go to say dont get a red suitcase or red sheets but the research hasnt been done yet so we cant really rule that out completely Dr McNeill said In his article Lancette reports the study almost didnt happen It only came into being at the urging of a 2015 Pest Management Professional Hall of Famer As Dr McNeill tells Entomology Today My advisor at the time Dr Phil Koehler said to me You know I dont think we have any recent studies regarding bed bug vision or how they respond to colors if theyre looking for a harborage At first I laughed at him and said Oh Dr Koehler bed bugs cant see color or use color in that way Thats ridiculous However he encouraged me to not push the idea out the door until we had tried some preliminary tests So we did some preliminary testing and found that the bed bugs were specifically going to certain colors over others especially as it pertained to harborages From there we took the idea and ran with it Pest trends For more information visit our website below 1 66 20 MORE ONLINE EntomologyToday org 2016 04 25 bedbugs favorite colorsare red and black 24 June 2016 Pest Management Professional mypmp net
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