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Published on: January 31, 2020
[Feeding behavior of Rhodnius robustus Larouse, 1927 (Hemiptera, Reduviidae) under laboratory conditions]
Camilo Rubio1, Ligia Inés Moncada2, Marco Andrés Rojas2
1Facultad de Ciencias y Educación, Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá, D.C, Colombia.
Introduction:
Despite of indoor insect control measures, American trypanosomiasis cases still occur, with the participation of both peridomestic and sylvan species. One of these species is Rhodnius robustus, which has been found naturally infected with Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma rangeli.
Objective:
To describe the feeding behavior of R. robustus under laboratory conditions.
Materials And Methods:
We analyzed time spent for repletion, the number of defecations, the percentage and number of times insects defecated during blood intake, and the weight gained after blood feeding in each nymph stage of R. robustus.
Results:
Repletion for R. robustus took between 19:26 to 44:55 (minutes:seconds) and all nymph stages defecated during blood feeding. The proportion of individuals which defecated during blood feeding varied between 13.3% and 93.3%. On the other hand, the highest average blood intake was observed in the fifth stage (337.19 mg), which is twice the blood intake of adults (161.25 mg).
Conclusions:
All stages of R. robustus dejected during blood feeding, which is an important factor for its vectorial competence. Nevertheless, the time prior to the first dejection, the percentage of dejections and number of individuals that dejected upon blood feeding, as well as the amount of ingested blood varied among stages, which means that feeding behavior is mediated by variables depending on age/stage.
