Canals M, Solís R, Tapia C, Ehrenfeld M, Cattan P
Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz. 1999 Sep-Oct;94(5):687-92. doi: 10.1590/s0074-02761999000500025.
There are two vectors of Chagas disease in Chile: Triatoma infestans and Mepraia spinolai. We studied the feeding behavior of these species, looking for differences which could possibly explain the low impact of the latter species on Chagas disease. Both species used thermal cues to locate their feeding source and consumed a similar volume of blood which was inversely related to the body weight before the meal and directly related to the time between meals. The average time between bites were 6.24 and 10.74 days. The average bite of M. spinolai lasted 9.68 min, significantly shorter than the 19.46 min for T. infestans. Furthermore, while T. infestans always defecated on the host, this behavior was observed in M. spinolai in only one case of 27 (3.7%). The delay between the bites and defecation was very long in M. spinolai and short in T. infestans. These differences may affect the reduced efficiency of transmission of Chagas infection by M. spinolai.
侵扰锥猎蝽和斯氏梅普猎蝽。我们研究了这些物种的取食行为，寻找可能解释后一物种对恰加斯病影响较小的差异。两种物种都利用热线索来定位其取食源，并且消耗的血量相似，这与进食前的体重呈负相关，与两餐之间的时间呈正相关。叮咬之间的平均时间分别为6.24天和10.74天。斯氏梅普猎蝽的平均叮咬持续时间为9.68分钟，明显短于侵扰锥猎蝽的19.46分钟。此外，侵扰锥猎蝽总是在宿主身上排便，而在斯氏梅普猎蝽中，仅在27例中有1例（3.7%）观察到这种行为。斯氏梅普猎蝽叮咬和排便之间的间隔很长，而侵扰锥猎蝽则很短。这些差异可能会影响斯氏梅普猎蝽传播恰加斯感染的效率降低。
