Rotten Fleas – How Do They Look?

Although bed bugs like to eat human blood, they do not have eyes that can see like humans. This parasitic creature has what is called a compound eye structure. It is thought that they do not see in color, that they visualize in black and white.

The bed bug’s eye is made up of hundreds of eye lenses called facets that fit together in a hexagon structure. An easy way to imagine what this insect’s eye looks like is to imagine a bee’s honey comb being conical and uneven. It’s like a soccer ball, but on a smaller and more complex level. The individual sides consist of two lenses, one on the surface and one on the inside. The bed bug’s double-lens eye structure allows it to see in 3-D. All of these aspects are paired together to build the parasite’s eye. These facets are connected to a tube that focuses light onto a central structure called the rhabdome. The rhabdome is sensitive to light and directs information via the optic nerve to the insect’s brain.

Each individual aspect in the bed bug’s eyes sends a different image to its brain. When all these images are processed and put together, a mosaic is created. This 3-D mosaic is how bedbugs can see their human hosts. It is not known whether, as the bedbug moves, the image it sees is updated in its entirety or it takes microseconds for each lens to update the visual information. If the sight of this parasitic insect updates lens by lens, it will see an image that is constantly being updated. This view would be like looking through a kaleidoscope with 3-D glasses.

Bed bugs come out at night or in the dark to eat their hosts for several reasons. One reason is because at night, when you’re sleeping in bed, you won’t feel them crawling and biting you. Another reason may be that these bloodsuckers have light-sensitive eyes that allow them to see better in the dark. These compound eyes can also pick up heat signatures from the human body. This is why most bed bug bites occur in your midsection. Your hot signature is warmer on your body, legs, and arms than on your fingers and toes.

Humans may have constantly updated color vision whereas bed bugs’ compound eyes see in black and white. Their eyes also don’t constantly update the full picture all at once, but they can see very well to do the best work for them. The task is to find a human host to feed on their blood.

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