Many feed on plant juices, while some species are predaceous, feeding on the blood of other insects and a few are parasitic, feeding on the blood of higher animals and humans. Most hemipterans have dorsal, abdominal scent glands in the nymphs, while in the adults they are located on the sides of their thorax. The odor from these glands function in their defensive. The nymphs and feed on the same materials and are often in direct competition. Two families contain parasitic members, affecting higher animals and humans.
Bed bugs are wingless bloodsuckers of birds and mammals.
Most members of this order are predaceous and a few are parasitic. The normal host of this parasite are packrats, opossums and armadillos and it sometimes invades homes. Parasitic members of this genus are called kissing bugs because they bite people around their mouths or other soft exposed facial areas, usually at night as they sleep. From South America into Mexico and some reports in Arizona and New Mexico we fine this species can transmitting a protozoan that causes Chagas disease. Textbook page 295 Figure 24-9.