Feeding behavior of Rhodnius robustus Larouse, 1927 (Hemiptera, Reduviidae) under laboratory conditions

Abstract

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 bloodfeeding in each nymph stage of R. robustus.

Results: Repletion for R. robustus took between 19:26 to 44:55 (minutes: seconds) and all nymphstages defecated during blood feeding. The proportion of individuals which defecated during bloodfeeding 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 forits vectorial competence. Nevertheless, the time prior to the first dejection, the percentage of dejectionsand number of individuals that dejected upon blood feeding, as well as the amount of ingested bloodvaried among stages, which means that feeding behavior is mediated by variables depending onage/stage

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7705/biomedica.v33i2.743