Thursday, September 4, 2014

Week One: Assassin Bug

Common Name: Assassin Bug

Scientific Name: Triatoma infestans
 
Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Hemiptera

Family: Reduviidae

Genus: Triatoma

Species: T. infestans

Description: Darwin described the assassin bug—of which he was a victim—as a “wingless…great black bug,” but in fact the assassin bug does possess a pair of dark wings folded demurely on its long abdomen. The bugs are oval in shape, with the typical insect arrangement of six long legs, three distinct body segments, and a pair of antennae. The head is small and elongated and has a slight resemblance to a black horse or cow skull, with a long, curved proboscis like an ibis’s beak. The body measures about 25 millimeters in length.

Environment: T. infestans lives in the rainforests of South America and may be found either in the dwelling of the victim or in the fronds of palm trees.

Reproduction & Development: The mature female insect may lay between 100-600 eggs, depending on how much blood she ingests and therefore how much nutrition she has to spare.

Nutrition: the main food of the assassin bug is the blood of birds, rodents, bats, and humans. The insects typically are the uninvited guests of their hosts’ dwellings.
Not-So-Fun Fact: Assassin bugs carry Chagas disease, which is most often fatal and causes symptoms including sores, fever, swollen lymph nodes, and damage to the major organs. The disease is transmitted when the feces of the insect, deposited near the feeding site, is scratched by the victim into the bite and therefore into the bloodstream.
 
 

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