Fig. 268—Ghilianella filiventris. Brazil. A, the female Insect. B, extremity of the body of the male.
Fam. 12. Reduviidae.—Head more or less elongate, very movable, eyes placed much in front of the thorax, ocelli, when present, behind the eyes. Proboscis short, or moderately short, not extending on to the breast, in repose curved under the head so as to form a loop therewith. Elytra, when present, consisting of three divisions. Tarsi three-jointed.—This is one of the largest and most important families of Hemiptera. Upwards of 2000 species are already known; the habits seem to be chiefly of a predaceous nature, the creatures drawing their nutriment from the animal rather than from the vegetable kingdom, and their chief prey being in all probability other kinds of Insects. There is, perhaps, no family of Insects exhibiting a greater variety of form and colour. The Emesids are amongst the most delicate of Insects, equalling in this respect the daddy-long-leg flies; they are, however, highly predaceous; their front legs are peculiarly formed for capturing and holding their prey, and have long coxae, like Mantis, so that these Insects are commonly mistaken for small or young Mantises, from which their sucking proboscis at once distinguishes them. This curious starved-looking form of bug reaches its maximum of peculiarity in the South American genus Ghilianella (Fig. 268). According to Pascoe the linear form enables the young larva to be carried about by the mother, the long slender abdomen of the larva being curled around the thorax of the parent. Ploiaria pallida, from Woodlark Island, is an Insect of excessive fragility and elegance, with the long thin legs coloured with alternate patches of black on a white ground, giving rise to a very curious appearance remarkably analogous to what we find in some of the equally delicate daddy-long-leg flies.
Fig. 269—Nabis lativentris, young. Cambridge. A, Insect seen from above; B, profile.
We have three species of Emesides in Britain, but most of our Reduviidae belong to the sub-family Nabides. These approximate to ordinary bugs in appearance and characters more than do any other of the Reduviidae. One of our indigenous Nabides is of great interest from the curious resemblance it has to an ant (Fig. 269). The likeness is brought about by the sides of the base of the abdomen being very pallid in colour, except a dark mark in the middle; this mark is in shape like the pedicel of an ant. Viewed in profile it is found that on the base of the abdomen there is an elevation like the "scale" in this position in ants, and that the abdomen is extremely ant-like in form. This resemblance is quite parallel with that of an Orthopteron to an ant (see Vol. V. p. 323); the Insect is by no means uncommon, and it is strange that this curious case of resemblance should hitherto have escaped notice. The bug runs about on plants and flowers, and is frequently in company with ants, but we do not know whether it preys on them. Not the least remarkable of the facts connected with this Insect is that the resemblance is confined to the earlier instars; the adult bug not being like an ant. We may here mention that there are numerous bugs that closely resemble ants, and that on the whole there is reason to believe that the resembling forms are actually associated during life, though we really know very little as to this last point.
Fig. 270—Ptilocnemus sidnicus. Australia. (After Mayr.)
Fig. 271—Myiodocha tipulina. China.
The little sub-family Holoptilides, with twenty-five species, but widely distributed in the Eastern hemisphere, is remarkable on account of the feathered antennae and legs of its members (Fig. 270). Altogether fourteen sub-families are recognised, the most extensive one being Harpactorides, including a great variety of remarkable forms; in the South American genus Notocyrtus (better known as Saccoderes, Fig. 257), the prothorax is swollen and covers the body to a greater or less extent in the fashion of a hood. In Yolinus and Eulyes the coloration is the most conspicuous system that could be devised, the sides of the abdomen (connexivum) being expanded into bright-red lobes on which are placed patches of polished-black. The most remarkable form of Reduviid is, perhaps, one from China (Fig. 271) of considerable size, of great fragility, and greatly resembling, like some Emesides, a daddy-long-legs fly, though it does not belong to the Emesides. It is an altogether anomalous form. According to Seitz there is found on the Corcovado in Brazil a Reduviid that exactly resembles one of the dark stinging-wasps of the genus Pepsis, and the bug makes the same sort of movements as the wasp does, though these are of a kind quite different from those of ordinary bugs.[[491]]