Editing Bed bug (section)

== Evolution ==
[[Cimicidae]], the ancestor of modern bed bugs, first emerged approximately 115 million years ago, more than 55 million years before bats—their previously presumed initial host—first appeared. From unknown ancestral hosts, a variety of different lineages evolved which specialized in either bats or birds. The common (''C.&nbsp;lectularius'') and tropical bed bug (''C.&nbsp;hemipterus'') split 40 million years before [[Homo#Evolution|''Homo'' evolution]]. Humans became hosts to bed bugs through host specialist extension (rather than switching) on three separate occasions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Roth |first1=Steffen |last2=Balvín |first2=Ondřej |last3=Siva-Jothy |first3=Michael T |last4=Di Iorio |first4=Osvaldo |last5=Benda |first5=Petr |last6=Calva |first6=Omar |last7=Faundez |first7=Eduardo I |last8=Khan |first8=Faisal Ali Anwarali |last9=McFadzen |first9=Mary |last10=Lehnert |first10=Margie P |last11=Naylor |first11=Richard |last12=Simov |first12=Nikolay |last13=Morrow |first13=Edward H |last14=Willassen |first14=Endre |last15=Reinhardt |first15=Klaus |title=Bedbugs Evolved before Their Bat Hosts and Did Not Co-speciate with Ancient Humans |journal=Current Biology |date=3 June 2019 |volume=29 |issue=11 |pages=1847–1853.e4 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2019.04.048 |pmid=31104934 |issn=0960-9822|doi-access=free|bibcode=2019CBio...29E1847R |display-authors=6}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Roth |first1=Steffen |last2=Balvín |first2=Ondřej |last3=Di Iorio |first3=Osvaldo |last4=Siva-Jothy |first4=Michael T |last5=Benda |first5=Petr |last6=Calva |first6=Omar |last7=Faundez |first7=Eduardo I |last8=McFadzen |first8=Mary |last9=Lehnert |first9=Margie P |last10=Khan |first10=Faisal Ali Anwarali |last11=Naylor |first11=Richard |last12=Simov |first12=Nikolay |last13=Morrow |first13=Edward H |last14=Willassen |first14=Endre |last15=Reinhardt |first15=Klaus |title=A molecular phylogeny of bedbugs elucidates the evolution of host associations and sex-reversal of reproductive trait diversification |journal=bioRxiv |date=2018 |doi=10.1101/367425 |url=https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/367425v1 |access-date=22 February 2025 |archive-date=2 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200802082803/https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/367425v1 |url-status=live |display-authors=6}}</ref>