The AMT withdrew four of its cars from circulation after a passenger thought they saw a bed bug on the Montreal to St. Jerome train.
The passenger alerted an AMT employee on Thursday evening and the cars were pulled out of service soon after in order to carry out a thorough inspection.
“We effectively saw bugs so we called an exterminator and made sure that the cars were treated.”
The bugs were sent away for analysis to determine if they were, in fact, bedbugs.
But when the results came back on Saturday evening the AMT learned the insects were actually not bed bugs at all, but weevils.
They may look gross to some, but weevils are no cause for panic.
Weevils are actually beetles with over 1000 varieties. They are usually brown or black and the most distinctive feature is the elongated head that forms a snout.
The insects live in nature, feeding off of plants, and are considered to be harmless to humans.
It’s the first time the AMT has had a bedbug scare, but Fortin says the complaint was taken very seriously.
“After that we did an inspection of all of our train cars,” she said. “From what we know there’s a little bit more than 20 train cars where we found those bugs but in every case it was weevils.”
The AMT says it has treated the affected cars and moving forward it plans to implement routine inspections of its trains for signs of bugs of any kind.
As for the weevils, it’s unclear how they got on the trains.
“The good news is, it’s not bed bugs,” Fortin said.
