ABSTRACT
Importance and physical description Many members of the insect family Reduviidae have an elongate (coneshaped) head, and hence the name conenose bugs (Figure 17.1). A relatively small but important group of these bugs in the subfamily Triatominae feeds exclusively on vertebrate blood. Notorious members of this group are frequently in the genus Triatoma, but not all. Triatomines are called kissing bugs because their blood meals are occasionally taken on the face or around human lips (Figure 17.2). Very often, their bites are painless; however, bite reactions may range from a single papule, to giant urticarial lesions, to anaphylaxis, depending on the degree of allergic sensitivity.1 Kissing bugs may also transmit the agent of Chagas disease, or American trypanosomiasis, one of the most important arthropod-borne diseases in tropical America.
