Comments on: Is this a bedbug?

Question: Is this a bedbug?

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 07:16:55 -0800

Is this a bedbug?

Photos with penny for scale.

This morning I woke up and went into the bathroom, where I felt this bug on my ankle. I don't know whether it was on my ankle in bed or just crawled there in the bathroom. When I shook it off, it just lay on the floor, only occasionally moving a tiny bit—clearly very near death.

There are no visible bite marks on my ankle, or anywhere else on my body that I can see.

It looks bigger than a bedbug, and the legs and especially the antennae do not look like the ones in pictures, but the resemblance is close enough that I'm freaking out.

By: ThePinkSuperhero

ThePinkSuperhero — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 07:28:29 -0800

I see those in my kitchen sometimes. Don't think it's a bedbug.

By: inkypinky

inkypinky — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 07:35:16 -0800

Looks bigger than the bedbugs I know.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 07:36:25 -0800

It could be, based on its dorsal side? The legs look too long to me, though -- more like a wee roach -- and it looks like it has antennae, which bedbugs don't have.

I would keep an eye out, and inspect your sheets/mattress for dots of blood or the blue-black pen-marking-like dots of bedbug excrement. But I don't think it is, based on those two photos.

By: drlith

drlith — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 07:36:58 -0800

It looks like a nymph cockroach to me.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 07:37:51 -0800

Or rather, bedbugs do have antennae, but I've never seen any so noticeably long and dark; those look more like roach antennae to me.

By: Ms. Moonlight

Ms. Moonlight — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:11:40 -0800

Those look like some of the roaches I've seen before.

By: hermitosis

hermitosis — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:19:00 -0800

Not a bedbug.

By: Sal and Richard

Sal and Richard — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:29:01 -0800

Can you turn it over and take a pic of its body?

By: Frowner

Frowner — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:40:35 -0800

If it's sort of dry and thick with a rounded shell, it might be what I grew up calling an "isopod" but which was actually some kind of pillbug or woodlouse, often found in damp places. (I mean, they are isopods, but so are a lot of other things).

It doesn't look like a bedbug to me - wrong color, too round, wrong antennae - but if you continue to worry, you could post it to bedbugger.com, where there are lots of more expert people who will identify it for you.

Also, in general you need to have a fairly pervasive infestation before they're going to be clinging to you or turning up in the bathroom.

By: mrbarrett.com

mrbarrett.com — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:04:03 -0800

+1 for pillbug and not a bedbug.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:29:50 -0800

Don't think so: bedbugs tend to have a head more distinctly isolated and defined from the thorax than that one seems to, and also are flatter than that fellow looks. Dunno what it is, exactly, but it looks like something other than a bedbug.

By: brianogilvie

brianogilvie — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:54:54 -0800

Definitely not a bedbug.

Based on the bottom photo, I might have guessed a woodlouse. But the top photo, though blurry, seems to show only 3 pairs of legs, which rules that out. Woodlice and other isopods have more pairs of legs than that. (Isopods are not insects at all; they're terrestrial crustaceans.)

Probably a roach, but not a typical American, Asian, or German cockroach; those have larvae whose antennae are longer than that. A proper identification would require better photos, or ideally, the specimen itself.

By: entropyiswinning

entropyiswinning — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 11:36:15 -0800

Looks like some kind of roach to me.

By: Made of Star Stuff

Made of Star Stuff — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 12:30:32 -0800

That's a little cockroach, not a bed bug. Blattodeans, ie cockroaches, have hoods on their backs that cover their heads from the top-down view. Hemipterans or true bugs, which bed bugs are a member of, do not.

(Cockroaches also don't have piercing, sucking mouthparts, but the pronotal hood is the most obvious character in your photos.)

By: Made of Star Stuff

Made of Star Stuff — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 12:31:48 -0800

(And brianogilvia is right, cockroaches usually have longer antennae, but they're also very easily broken.)

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 13:20:44 -0800

Definitely, without a doubt, 100% not a bedbug. Among other things, a bedbug's legs are much closer to its head.

It does looks awfully cockroachy, though. Considering the circumstances in which you discovered it, do yourself a favour and do NOT google "cockroach ear."

By: bolognius maximus

bolognius maximus — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 22:44:01 -0800

Wee baby cockroach! Looks like an American cockroach nymph.