CIMEX: BREEDING TECHNIQUE 509 



The bed bug undergoes an incomplete metamorphosis, the immature 

 stages closely resembling the adults. The egg (Plate LXIII, fig. 3) of 

 rotundatus is of a dirty white colour and ovoid in 

 shape; the upper end has an operculum, surrounded life history* * 

 by a narrow rim which projects more at one side than 

 the other. The egg of lectularius (fig. 5) is very similar to that of 

 rotundatus, but perhaps a little larger. The female bug attaches the 

 egg by a gelatinous substance to a fixed object, usually in a crack or 

 crevice. The larva (Plate LX, fig. 1) hatches out in from four to 

 eight days or more according to the temperature. 



The larva of rotundatus measures 1'5 mm. in length when unfed and 

 1*7 mm. when replete. This stage lasts from four to five days and 

 as a rule two feeds of blood are taken in the cold weather in 

 Madras, but the larva may feed only once. The first nymphal stage lasts 

 from seven to eight days, during which time the bug feeds three or four 

 times. The second nymphal stage is completed in from seven to nine 

 days, and the third lasts another week ; during each of these stages the bug 

 feeds three or four times. The last nymphal stage lasts from ten to 

 fourteen days with at least four feeds. In the hot weather in Madras 

 the period from the larva to the adult takes about six or seven weeks ; in 

 the cold weather from nine to eleven weeks. Egg laying begins from ten 

 days to a fortnight after the adult stage is reached, and during this time 

 three or four feeds of blood are taken. 



The bug usually takes about four minutes to become replete, and 

 in the hot weather the meal is digested in from twenty-four to thirty-six 

 hours ; in the cold weather digestion is delayed, and lasts from forty-eight 

 to seventy-two hours. If a bug is starved for ten days its mid-gut 

 becomes filled with bubbles of gas. 



Girault notes that a female lectularius in captivity will lay as many as 

 111 eggs during a period of eighty-one days ; the eggs are laid in batches 

 as in the case of Conorhinus rubrofasciatus, there being as many as twenty 

 eggs in a batch. A female rotundatus has been kept alive for 130 days, 

 during which time 180 eggs were laid in batches of from two to nine 

 eggs. It is very doubtful whether a single female survives under natural 

 conditions as long as a year; six to eight months would probably 

 represent the limit. 



The method of keeping and feeding the bed bug in the laboratory has 

 been described by the senior author. The bugs are placed in small test 



tubes (3x1 in.), and a piece of white filter paper is 



, , ,1 r Breeding technique 



either crumpled or rolled up and placed at the bottom ot 



