KISSING BUGS. 



REDUVIID^: 



Some of the Assassin-bugs are rather striking creatures; 

 nearly all are fairly large and some are gayly colored. 

 They are predaceous, feeding chiefly on the juices of other 

 insects. 



As the "Kissing Bug" this creature 

 Reduvius (plate xxy) received considerable news- 



personatus 



paper space some years ago. Another, and 



better, common name is Masked Bed-bug Hunter. It 

 often enters houses where it and its young feed on bed-bugs. 

 Especially the young have many sticky hairs to which 

 dust and other small particles adhere, making the mask. 

 Many Reduviids have these sticky hairs and should not 

 be put in a collecting bottle together with delicate insects. 

 If personatus bites humans, as it rarely does, a very painful 

 wound is caused, so that the newspaper stories have some 

 basis in fact. 



A southern species of similar habits, but much more 

 given to sucking human blood, is Triatoma (= Conorliinus} 

 sanguisuga. In the South, it is called the Big Bed-bug. 

 It is about an inch long; black, marked with red on the 

 sides of the prothorax, at the base of the apex of the front 

 wings, and at the sides of the abdomen ; the head is long, 

 narrow, cylindrical, and thickest behind the eyes. It is 

 said that the effect of its bite may last for nearly a year, 

 and it is probable that attacks which are attributed to 

 spiders are really the work of this insect. Out-of-doors, it 

 feeds on insects, including grasshoppers and potato beetles. 



Another species which has been accused of being a 

 kissing-bug is Melanolestes picipes. It is black; about 

 .6 in. long; the head well drawn out in front of the eyes, 

 behind which is a tran verse, impressed line; the prothorax 

 is more or less bell-shaped and divided into two lobes; 

 the legs are short, the femora stout, and each tibia has a 

 large pad at its apex. In nature it is often found hiding 

 under stones and boards. 



A-binmr.rus crassipes is about .6 in. long; rather broad; 

 black, the pronotum, scutellum, and abdomen margined 



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