Subject: Type of assassin bug?
Geographic location of the bug: Northern Los Angeles County/Antelope Valley
Date: 08/30/2021
Your letter to the bugman: Please help ID this bug. I’ve been having welts and now an allergic reaction, and I found this bug in my sheets this morning. Need to know if it’s a kissing bug or masked hunter…or other assassin bug. I collected the bug if you need more pics I can provide them. Please help. Scared about Chagas’ disease. Thanks
How you want your letter signed: JRN
Western Blood-Sucking Conenose Bug
Dear JRN,
The bad news is that this is a Western Blood-Sucking Conenose Bug which is pictured on BugGuide. The more comforting news is that this is a North American species, and according to BugGuide: “Bite can cause severe allergic reaction in humans. Bite and defecation into bite can transmit Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. The North American species can carry the parasite but they do not normally defecate at the site of bite, and thus rarely transmit the disease (Vetter 2001). Rare vector-borne cases of Chagas occur in the so. US (CDC 2013).”
The post Western Blood-Sucking Conenose Bug appeared first on What's That Bug?.
No comments:
Post a Comment