I found this bug crawling on my son’s skin. At first, I thought it was a hard tick, but on closer examination, I’m sure it’s not. I also wondered if it was a bedbug, but I’m pretty sure it’s not one of those either, as they look to be redder and more glossy than this - it was grey-brown, dull, slow-moving and about 3mm long. I’m in England.
Here is a picture of it
Here is closeup of the head
Here a closeup of the body
What is it?
It looks like a wood tick to me. Usually get them from areas where there’s a lot of pine like you would see at higher elevations in the mountainous areas. I live in Seattle and we have none, but on the east side of the Cascades, which has very dry heat in the summer you get them a lot. Nasty bugs that bight into you and burrow and suck blood. They lock in somehow and if you pull them out they tear leaving part of them in you which can get infected. You have to use a special medicine or turpentine to drive them out.
Also, I could be entirely mistaken about it being a tick.
head and legs look wrong to be a wood tick. cant offer more than that though
Do ticks even have antennae? Doesn’t seem like a tick.
I’ve had carpet beetles and I don’t think it’s one of those.
Yeah, it’s definitely insect, so ticks are out.
I don’t see the little triangle up by the head.
Perhaps a Leaf Beetle - Chrysomelidae.
It looks to me like it has a thin/transparent shell projection like this tortoise beetle
Order Coleoptera
Could it be a young stink bug?
Picture here. Look at the bottom picture, the lowest bug on the leaf. Young ones have a more rounded tail area.
Bedbugs are pretty fast. I saw some videos on youtube… not a bedbug.
That looks a pretty close match- and my impression was that it was a true bug rather than a beetle. It wasn’t quite as leggy as the immature stink bugs in that picture, but we have lots of other true bug species here - Googling around, I think it’s almost certainly a nymph of one of our shield bugs - maybe this one.
Yep, definitely looks like a forest bug to me.
