Amber with Wasps Mating For Sale

Assassin Bug

Order Hemiptera, Family Reduviidae. This is an assassin bug. It is parasitic on mammals (as the name suggests). In 1835, Charles Darwin was bitten in western Argentina by a similar insect and contracted Chagas' disease.

Here is what it looks like..

Sometimes specimens look to large and to good to be real. This one is like that, but believe me, it is real. The animal is so large! It is well more than half an inch long. This is a view of the ventral side.

In this picture you can see the long beak It is the straight and rather dark object that goes down the median. I find the hairy legs a scream.

You can see the eyes and the facets of the eyes very clearly. Also the beak is obvious.

Assassin bugs are common and wide spread throughout the world, so named because of the speed with which they grasp and poison their prey. There are around 3,000 species of this insect, varying in size from a few millimeters to three or four centimeters. Some of the species are long and thin making them appear much like a mantis while others are more solid and typically bug like. They have two pairs of wings and a powerful curved beak with which they pierce their prey to suck out the tissues.

Most assassin bugs look much like the insects on which they prey, making it easy to approach and seize their victims. The majority of the species feed on gnats, midges, bark lice, ants, gall forming aphids, silverfish, flies, cockroaches, bed bugs and harvestmen. Since these are small insects which are harmful in some way to man the assassin bug is welcome in most man made environments. In fact the huge African assassin bug is a predator of the large rhinoceros beetle which is a pest of most coconut plantations. It attacks this heavily armored titan by thrusting its beak through the joints between the legs and body. Like all carnivorous insects, the assassin bug feeds by external digestion. Pushing their rostrum into the victim's body, they inject a highly toxic fluid which acts on the nerves and muscles before breaking down the body tissue. The effects of their saliva are almost immediate.

They just do not get any better. This is the finest example of a Hemipteran I have ever seen.

Here is a scanned image (large).

If this specimen is the one for you then just click on this price.............

SOLD

There is another assissn bug at this page (number 26b).

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