Cimicidae

The Cimicidae are a family of small parasitic insects that feed exclusively on the blood of warm-blooded animals. They are called cimicids or, loosely, bed bugs (or bedbugs or bed-bugs), though the latter term properly refers to the most famous species of the family, Cimex lectularius, the common bed bug. Around 90 species are placed in the family Cimicidae. All cimicids are small, oval-shaped, and flat in appearance, although their bodies bulge after feeding. They do not fly, but do have small, nonfunctional wing pads. They also have beak-like mouth parts with which they pierce the skin and suck the blood of their hosts. Cimicids practice traumatic insemination. Although the female has a normal genital tract for laying eggs, the male never uses it (except in the species Primicimex cavernis), instead piercing the female's abdominal wall; the sperm then migrate through the female's paragenital system. Feeding is required for egg production in females and possibly for sperm production in males. Egg-laying behavior varies among species. C. lectularius stops laying fertile eggs about 35 to 50 days after the last insemination. The swallow bug, Oeciacus vicarius, hibernates after mating in autumn and begins laying in spring, to coincide with the return of the host.