Cimex boueti, occurring in French Guinea, is another species attacking man. Its habits and general life history are the same as for the above species. It is 3 to 4.5 mm. in length, has vestigial elytra, and much elongated antennæ and legs. The extended hind legs are about as long as the body.
Cimex columbarius, a widely distributed species normally living in poultry houses and dove cotes, C. inodorus, infesting poultry in Mexico, C. hirundinis, occurring in the nests of swallows in Europe and Oeciacus vicarius ([fig. 19i]) occurring in swallows' nests in this country, are species which occasionally infest houses and attack man.
Conorhinus sanguisugus, the cone-nosed bed-bug. We have seen in our consideration of poisonous insects, that various species of Reduviid bugs readily attack man. Certain of these are nocturnal and are so commonly found in houses that they have gained the name, of "big bed-bugs." The most noted of these, in the United States, is Conorhinus sangiusugus ([fig. 71]), which is widely distributed in our Southern States.
Like its near relatives, Conorhinus sangiusugus is carnivorous in habit and feeds upon insects as well as upon mammalian and human blood. It is reported as often occurring in poultry houses and as attacking horses in barns. The life history has been worked out in considerable detail by Marlatt, (1902), from whose account we extract the following.
The eggs are white, changing to yellow and pink before hatching. The young hatch within twenty days and there are four nymphal stages. In all these stages the insect is active and predaceous, the mouth-parts ([fig. 72]) being powerfully developed. The eggs are normally deposited, and the early stages are undoubtedly passed, out of doors, the food of the immature forms being other insects. Immature specimens are rarely found indoors. It winters both in the partly grown and adult stage, often under the bark of trees or in any similar protection, and only in its nocturnal spring and early summer flights does it attack men. Marlatt states that this insect seems to be decidedly on the increase in the region which it particularly infests,—the plains region from Texas northward and westward. In California a closely related species of similar habits is known locally as the "monitor bug."
The effect of the bite of the giant bed-bug on man is often very severe, a poisonous saliva apparently being injected into the wound. We have discussed this phase of the subject more fully under the head of poisonous insects.