182 APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY 



Family Phymatidae. The Ambush-bugs (Fig. 170) as members of 

 this family are called are carnivorous bugs which usually hide in blossoms 

 to capture insects visiting there. They are rather short and stout, 

 generally less than half an inch long, and have colors so combined on their 

 bodies as to render them very inconspicuous in the flowers. Their prey is 

 generally any insect they can grasp with their stout fore legs, whether 

 it be injurious or otherwise. 



FIG. 170. FIG. 171. 



FIG. 170. Ambush-bug (Phymata erosa wolffii Stal.): a, from above; 6, from the side, 

 showing the grasping front leg. Enlarged: true length shown by hair line. (Modified 

 from Sanderson and Jackson, Elementary Entomology, after Riley, U. S. D. A.) 



FIG. 171. Reduviid Bug, about natural size. (Original.) 



Family Reduviidae. This large family consists of "carnivorous insects 

 some of which are small while others are considerably more than an inch 

 long (Fig. 171). Though generally feeding on the blood of other insects 

 they may occasionally attack man and in such cases produce rather 

 painful wounds. One species, most common in the Southern States, 

 often enters houses and feeds upon the bedbug, and from this habit has 

 been called the Masked Bedbug Hunter, the mask referring to dust which 

 adheres to its rather sticky body before it becomes adult. Another 

 species in the West and South is occasionally found in beds where it 

 imitates the habits of the true bedbug. A similar but different species 

 occurs in California. 



The group as a whole, preying as its members do upon other insects 

 almost entirely, must be regarded as a beneficial one. The family is 

 most abundant in the warmer climates. 



Family Cimicidae. The Cimicidse is a very small group but well 

 known through one of its members, the Bedbug. All of the insects 

 belonging here are small, rather oval in outline, very flat, and rather 

 reddish in color. Birds, poultry and bats are attacked by species similar 

 to but smaller than the Bedbug and some of these under unusual condi- 

 tions, -may enter houses and attack man. 



The Bedbug (Cimex lectularius L.). This universally distributed 

 and well-known pest (Fig. 172) appears to have originated in Asia and 

 has .now spread wherever man is found. It is a small, flat insect, reddish- 

 brown in color, about a fifth of an inch long when adult, and wingless, 



