This week's case was donated by one of our intrepid infectious diseases fellows, Dr. Geno Tai, who was travelling across country and found these arthropods in his lodging. Identification? Photos and video courtesy of his friend and travel-mate, Dr. Chris Hwang.
8 comments:
Not sure about first two pictures, but that last one looks like a bedbug (Cimex lectularius) for sure!
Oh, oh! The fellow traveler was bugged in the lodging’s bed. The picture is at a regular scale and there was no travel history of any cave therefore we cannot say the bug was from a flying mammal or the bug was at bat. It’s difficult to tell the length of the hairs so we can presume that this is a well fed Cimex lectularius as already said by Idzi.
Florida Fan
I'm getting itchy just looking at that last picture.
Looks like little chicken ectoparasites (Cimex lectularius) you might know them as bed bugs
Here's a little true story.
"What's crawling on my night shirt?" My startled wife exclaimed.
Being awakened from a dreamy morning sleep, I turned a bleary eye to the crawly little critter. "Looks like a bed bug." "But I need to take it to the lab to be sure." The night stalker turned out to be a bat bug (Cimex adjunctus). Turns out our bedroom window was right below an attic vent which was a hot spot bats at night. Over 50 years in that bedroom we saw only that one Cimex.
That looks like a bed bug!!
(Cimex lectularius)
It must be a bed bug!! Though there are few other similar looking bugs which would also infest humans, e.g., Cimex hemipterus, but inside the house, it would be quite improbable. To know exactly, we should perhaps use the book of Usinger RL. 1966 (Monograph of Cimicidae) to make a more accurate identification. In the third picture, it looks not like a fecal drop, which also bed bugs use to remove part of the water/serum in the blood and continue blood-sucking by concentrating the red- and white blood cells in their intestine, but rather someone squashed the bug before photographing. The specimen does not look fully engorged and possible lost part of the blood it has taken by the aggressive behavior of the collector!
looks like a travelers bug or louse ?
I wonder if the second picture could be some kind of blister beetle?
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