What Bed Bugs Look Like at Every Life Stage
A quick visual guide to egg, nymph, and adult bed bugs.
Egg
About the size of a pinhead and pearly white. Often tucked into mattress seams and cracks, so a flashlight or magnifying glass helps spot them.
Nymph
Nearly colorless right after hatching, then darkening with each of five molts on the way to adulthood. Easy to mistake for debris at this stage.
Adult
Reddish brown and about the size of an apple seed. Flat when unfed, more swollen and darker red right after a meal.
Bed bugs look different at each of their three life stages, egg, nymph, and adult, which is useful to know since you can have an infestation well before you ever spot a full grown adult.
Eggs are tiny and easy to miss without good light. Nymphs start out pale and almost see through, then get darker with every molt as they grow. Adults are the reddish brown, apple seed sized bugs most people picture, but by the time adults are showing up in the open, the infestation has usually been building for a while.
Knowing what each stage looks like matters because an infestation is often mostly eggs and nymphs long before an adult is ever seen crawling in the open. A trained inspector checks for all three stages, along with shed skins and dark spotting, rather than just looking for adults.
Want to know how fast they multiply? See the Bed Bug Life Cycle, or get a Bed Bug Inspection & Detection.
Frequently Asked Questions
They’re tiny, about 1mm, so while visible to the naked eye under good light, a flashlight or magnifying glass makes them much easier to spot.
Yes, they appear more swollen and reddish immediately after a meal, then flatten and brown over the following day as they digest.
