How Bed Bugs Mate
WouterIt’s not clear exactly how bed bugs mate, but you can probably guess from the sex of the insects. Female bedbugs mate with one or more males, and their mating period is typically two minutes. Subsequent mating sessions last about half as long. As they mature, female bedbugs ejaculate less. This is in part to conserve sperm and swimmers.
Bed bugs reproduce in five stages. Each stage involves a molt of the shell. This means that a female bedbug will lay about 25% more eggs than a male. However, the female will continue breeding until her life ends. This is due to the fact that her body can only withstand so much breeding.
Bed bugs use a traumatic insemination process to reproduce. A male bedbug will sample the female penis in order to detect previous matings, and if he detects other bugs, he will reduce the size of his ejaculate. This is a sign that the female is pregnant.
While the evolutionary origin of traumatic insemination is not known, it has evolved independently in many invertebrate species. It’s most evolved in the bed bug Cimex lectularius, and has been studied extensively. Although it’s most commonly associated with male-female coupling, traumatic insemination has also been observed between different species.
