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Genus Triatoma - Bloodsucking Conenoses
Classification Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hemiptera (True Bugs, Cicadas, Hoppers, Aphids and Allies)
Suborder Heteroptera (True Bugs)
Family Reduviidae (Assassin Bugs)
Genus Triatoma (Bloodsucking Conenoses)
Other Common Names Kissing Bugs
Big Bed Bugs Numbers Nearctica.com lists 11 species. Size body length 16-21 mm Identification Medium-sized, boldly patterned in dark brown to black with reddish markings. Beak tapered, not curved, as in Reduvius, and bare (1) (2) (3). See Lent (1979) for key to species. Range Southern North America into neotropics. T. sanguisuga and T. heidemanni are eastern. Habitat Mammal nests, houses Season All year, but may be more frequently noticed in spring and fall when dispersing and coming to lights. Food Mammalian blood; also other insects? Life Cycle After a meal, female scatters many oval whitish eggs. Nymphs take up to 2-3 years to become an adult, passing through eight instars. Remarks Bite causes severe allergic reaction in many humans. Bite and defecation into bite can transmit Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, a protozoan. The most notorious vector is T. infestans, found in South America. The North American species are not normally thought to transmit the disease, though they can carry the parasite. (The North American species do not normally defecate at the site of the bite, which is what actually transmits the parasite--see Kissing bugs (Triatoma) and the skin. The CDC page on Chagas' Disease says that "Rare vectorborne cases of Chagas disease have been noted in the southern United States". Print References Slater, p. 130, fig. 242, T. sanguisuga (1)
Milne, plate 120, p. 474, T. sanguisuga (2)
Swan and Papp, p. 121, fig. 106, T. sanguisuga (3)
Drees, p. 53, plate 53 Triatoma species (4)
Brimley, p. 72, lists T. sanguisuga and T. heidemanni for North Carolina (5).
Lent, (1979). Revision of the Triatominae (Hemiptera, Reduviidae), and their significance as vectors of Chagas disease. Bulletin of the AMNH; v. 163, article 3. Available as a 158 megabyte PDF file, linked here. Internet References
Chagas Disease--TDR, a WHO affiliate
North Carolina State University Entomology Collection lists T. sanguisuga (30 pinned), T. lenticularius (3 pinned).
Works Cited | 1. | How to Know the True Bugs
By Slater, James A., and Baranowski, Richard M. | |
| 3. | The Common Insects of North America
By Lester A. Swan, Charles S. Papp | |
| 4. | A Field Guide to Common Texas Insects
By Bastiaan M. Drees, John A. Jackman |  |
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