Your Bed Is Much Dirtier Than A Chimpanzee's, Study Finds

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- You're going to want to change your sheets after reading this. A study by biologists at North Carolina State University says a chimpanzee's bed is typically much cleaner than a humans.

And get this.

The study says humans are much more likely to spend the night rolling around in fecal and skin bacteria than chimpanzees.

On the other hand, chimpanzees, who make their own beds daily, tend to keep their sleeping areas very tidy and clean.

"We know that human homes are effectively their own ecosystems, and human beds often contain a subset of the taxa – or types – of organisms found in the home," explains lead author Megan Thoemmes, a Ph.D. student at the university, in a statement. "For example, about 35 percent of bacteria in human beds stem from our own bodies, including fecal, oral and skin bacteria."

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Researchers in Tanzania swabbed 41 chimpanzee beds to test for microbial biodiversity. The swabs revealed that chimpanzee beds had greater a diversity of microbes of than human beds.

However, human beds tested showed much higher concentrations of fecal, oral and skin bacteria.

"We found almost none of those microbes in the chimpanzee nests, which was a little surprising," Thoemmes said.