# Found Assassin nymph



## cloud jaguar (Jun 20, 2009)

I found an assassin bug nymph on front yard rosebushes while looking for some chinese mantids i released as L3s out there. The assassin is an odd creature - when a ff crawls on him he scoops it forward with a real leg, grabs it steady with the four front legs, then pierces it through with a long needle proboscis and sucks 'em dry. He has eaten about 4 ffs since i caught him 30 minutes ago.

Something about them biting humans and pooping on them?! Did I read that correctly? Eeewww. Tell me if there is any danger with these little creeps. Thanks.


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## ABbuggin (Jun 20, 2009)

Harmless.  At worst, an adult bite will be comparable to a bee sting.


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## gadunka888 (Jun 22, 2009)

there's an assasin bug( Triatoma infestans,Triatoma sordida, Triatoma brasiliensis, Triatoma pseudomaculata, or Panstrongylus megistus) that bites people and spreads a kind of disease caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. The assasin bug poops in the wound and the protozoan enters through the wound. The disease is usually fatal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagas_disease

maybe bringing that assasin bug home wasn't such a good idea after all.....


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## Peter Clausen (Jun 22, 2009)

I keep two species of African assassin bugs and recently collected two of what I'm sure are not assassin bugs, but actually nymphs of Western conifer seed bugs (supposedly-herbivorous leaf-footed bugs). In a moment of combined laziness, convenience and curiosity (last week) I placed some house flies in with them (easier than going outside for pine cone seeds which I can only guess they feed on (hence their name)). Well, guess what happened? They fed on the flies! A few hours ago I fed them small roach nymphs. Same result! I can't confirm at the moment that they are actually coriedae, but I'm 90% sure I've ID'd them correctly. These bugs are predatory. I guess I better get some pine cone seeds and see if they feed on them.


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## kakistos (Jun 22, 2009)

That's a nice experiment!

Do they use the same probiscus as assassin bugs? Because it would seem strange to me to have it for pine seeds...


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## PhilinYuma (Jun 22, 2009)

Peter said:


> I keep two species of African assassin bugs and recently collected two of what I'm sure are not assassin bugs, but actually nymphs of Western conifer seed bugs (supposedly-herbivorous leaf-footed bugs). In a moment of combined laziness, convenience and curiosity (last week) I placed some house flies in with them (easier than going outside for pine cone seeds which I can only guess they feed on (hence their name)). Well, guess what happened? They fed on the flies! A few hours ago I fed them small roach nymphs. Same result! I can't confirm at the moment that they are actually coriedae, but I'm 90% sure I've ID'd them correctly. These bugs are predatory. I guess I better get some pine cone seeds and see if they feed on them.


Well Peter, I haven't seen your bugs (pix please!), I haven't sniffed them to see of they have a "piney smell," you are familiar with identifying insects (you used some kind of key?), and you certainly live in the right part of the country where Western conifer seed bugs dwell, though I haven't seen them farther north than the central California coast myself, but I'd still bet, sight unseen, that this is not the right identification.

An insect that bores into pine seeds and dissolves the tough seeds inside so that it can ingest them, has a very special proboscis and must secrete "dedicated" enzymes to dissolve the seeds. In its natural environment, there is an ample supply of vegetable food and no need for the insect to learn how to "pinch hit."

Your bugs behaved (surprise!) like a typical assassin bug, recognizing its moving prey as food, stalking it and capturing it, a most complex behavior that requires correct neural recognition pathways, coordinated grasping limbs and and the strength to overcome its struggling prey. It also needs specially adapted mouth parts and enzymes to liquify its prey before sucking it up. Once swallowed, the gut will have to contain apropriate enzymes and flora to digest animal protein, very different in almost every way from a pine seed.

So I'm afraid that I can't buy your identification without coroborative evidence and a note from their mother. My double sawbuck says that they won't touch the conifer seeds!

Really interesting and fun, though, and I hope that you are out, even now, searching for those connifer seeds!


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## C.Price (Jun 24, 2009)

I keep Arilus cristatus (Wheel bugs) and have for a while now. They are not prone to bite but they do smell.


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## Peter Clausen (Jul 6, 2009)

Updates:

1. No interest in the cones

2. Found several more nymphs (see these every year on the sides of the house)

3. Found one adult Zelus sp. assassin on the side of the house (or something similar)

4. Last but not least, the predatory nymphs molted out into the same adult insect as that in #3, so a Western conifer seed bug it was/is not!

Spot on Phil and Kakistos!

What is strange is the number of nymphs I see of this species each summer, but only twice have I found the adults in the wild.

I do see Western conifer seed bugs up here, though not yet this year. They are especially common as adults in the fall which made me suspect these were nymphs of those. Now I'm wondering what _their_ nymphs look like, but not quite enough to climb the hundred foot Douglas firs around the house.

Maybe Western conifer "seed bugs" should be called Western conifer leaf-footed bugs;-) (Coreidae vs. Lygaeidae)


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