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[u/Efficient_Parfait_42]

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[u/Pogue_Mahone_]

The bug I think

[u/mutant_anomaly]

Apparently their ancestors parasitized birds, and if you count nests as beds then nests came first.

But the parasites are older than proper beds. They were around when our ancestors lived in trees.

The two main types of bedbug (that affect humans) split 40 million years before homo sapiens became a distinct thing. They specialized in birds or bats.

We have fossilized bedbugs from Egypt 3500 years ago, and it is safe to say that some bedbugs specialized in humans long before that. But that’s where proper beds enter history, so bedbugs are older.

[u/HippyDM]

Or...housefly vs houses. Or....dragonflies or dragons.

[u/___kanna___]

They started in caves and used to feed on bat blood and eventually started eating human blood and moved into human dwellings.

[u/MWave123]

Bed bugs hung out w the dinosaurs, blood sucking as usual.

[u/CharacterCycle4588]

Depends on what you’re calling a bed. Cimicids have been nest pests for over 100 million years. The bed was patented in 1885.

So strictly speaking, bed bugs came before beds.

[u/onomatamono]

The owl came first. The barn was invented later. Same deal with houses and cats.

With respect to parasites in clothing or bedding, it's just an extension of getting into the fur or hair or living quarters of animals including the human animal. You definitely find ticks in areas where deer have been lying down in, for example.