Many bug species have a reputation for extremely short lifespans. The average housefly lives about a month. Male mosquitoes and ants, which exist only to mate with females of the species, may only live for a week or two.

But some insects can live for years. This is a real problem when it comes to infestations. Long living insects mean an infestation will not go away on its own, or might come back intermittently if you do not intervene. Many of these long living bugs will also breed throughout their lifespan, leading to thousands of new bugs.

Longest Living Bug Species

Some of these bug species are common invaders of local homes. Others, you may never have to see in person in Virginia unless you seek them out. The bug species that live the longest are:

• Cicadas – These loud summer pests luckily do not come inside except by accident, although they can be annoying and destructive outdoors. Periodic cicadas – the ones that appear once every few years – can live for 17 years.
• Splendor Beetles – This bug has not yet made its way to North America, but it is invasive so it could become a problem in the future. They are destructive to trees and live for 30 years. Their populations grow slowly because they only lay about 5 eggs at a time.
• Tarantulas – Common brown spiders live 12 years for males and 36 years for females when tarantulas are kept in captivity. But unless your pet tarantula is on the loose, you likely will not have to worry about tarantulas in your home.
• Queen Ants – Queen ants are the leaders of their colonies and responsible for reproduction. The males and worker ants of the colony are there to service the queens through mating, finding food, and building nests. Each queen can live up to 30 years, spending that time growing her colony to include thousands of ants.
• Termite Queens – Termites have a similar colony structure to ants with a queen, reproductive males, and workers. Queens in a termite colony can lay more than 300,000 eggs in their lifetimes, and live for 25 to 50 years, making them the longest lived insect and explaining how they can cause so much damage to homes.

While local residents in places like Bristow, Gainesville, and the surrounding areas will hopefully never have to worry about splendor beetles or tarantulas in their homes, ants and termites are a regular pest occurrence in the area. The long lifespans of their queens mean that once ants or termites build their nest near your home, the colonies could continue growing for years.

Pest control from ExtermPRO will determine what species of ants or termites we are dealing with. From there, we can determine if we can get rid of insects by targeting workers or if we need to go to the source and eliminate the queen. Our advanced pest control methods work against the most long lived of pest species. Give us a call if you have pests that do not seem to go away.