Alfred, Lord Tennyson famously drew attention to the rigors of the natural world when he wrote of "Nature red in tooth and claw." His poem, "In Memoriam," was published in 1859 (the same year as "The Origin of the Species"). But had Tennyson known of the sexual habits of the common bedbug, and if he could have swallowed his Victorian sensibilities, he might have written, "Nature red in tooth, claw . . . and penis."

Instead of becoming poet laureate, Tennyson might then have become the Bret Easton Ellis of the 19th century, for the story of the bedbug is among the most gruesome in the insect world, a world already renowned for its stomach-churning weirdness. The squeamish and those who happen to be eating as they read this are hereby warned.

Bedbugs are in some ways pretty standard insects. The female has ovaries and a reproductive tract and lays eggs. The male has testes and a penis. So far, so normal. Their feeding habits are fairly repulsive to humans, but more of that later. It's how they copulate that is really different.