Family. Lygæidæ.
Scutellum short; antennæ four-jointed; ocelli present; membranous part of hemielytra with never more than five nervures. Nearly all vegetable feeders. A few are recorded here as biting man.
Lyctocoris campestris, Fabricius.
Syn.: Acanthia campestris, Fabr. (Lyctocoris domesticus).
Rare in habitations, lives on human blood. Found by Blanchard in a bed at an hotel at Liverpool. The bite is undoubtedly worse than that of Cimex; cosmopolitan. In colour it is ferruginous, shining, legs testaceous; hemielytra slightly shorter and narrower than the abdomen; membranous portion transparent, the apex broadly fuscous. Length 3·8 to 4·8 mm.
Rhodinus prolixus, Stål, 1859.
Sometimes attacks man, and the bite is very painful. It is 25 mm. long and 8 mm. broad, and occurs in Colombia. It is found also in Cayenne and Venezuela. This like other species is known in South America as bichuque or benchuca.
[A few other unimportant species are also recorded as biting man, such as Harpactor cruentas, in the South of France; Eulyes amœna, from Borneo and Java; Arilus carinatus, Forster, from Brazil. The latter appears to be the same as the Acanthia serratus, Fabricius.—F. V. T.]
Order. Orthoptera.
[The only Orthoptera recorded as doing actual harm to man are certain wingless locusts found in Africa. The cysticercus stage of a small tapeworm found in rats and man has been found in an earwig (Alcock).