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Photo#254562
Conenose Bug Nymph in California (September) - Triatoma

Conenose Bug Nymph in California (September) - Triatoma
Webb Canyon, ~2000 ft. altitude, Los Angeles County, California, USA
September 25, 2008
I found several of these very small bugs around my house last fall and feel quite certain that they are Triatoma nymphs. I squished one of the more bloated looking ones I found and it left a bright red blood stain on the tissue -- unfortunately it was probably a recently ingested meal courtesy of my beloved cage-free house rabbit. I remove at least a couple of adult conenose bugs from inside the house each year, but I have yet to attempt photos of one... We live in a really old cabin in the middle of a lot of wilderness, so I would not be at all surprised if there are wood rats living near or underneath the house.

Quite uniformly dark
We're guessing this will turn out to be protracta, but wish we could be more certain

 
Established adult population
Hi J & J. For what it's worth, this nymph was found inside the cabin we were living in. A few years later, I collected and photographed an adult from inside the same cabin and sent it to Dan Swanson who identified it as T. protracta:
https://bugguide.net/node/view/371021
If there are other CA species known from that area, I suppose it is possible that there could have been more than one species inhabiting the cabin, but my money would be on protracta given the prevalence of that species and the corroborating presence of adults.

Yeah, probably.
At this instar the legs look more bulky, but that nose! Don't know of any other heteropterans that have that look....

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