Blood-feeding of Rhodnius prolixus

• Published in: Biomédica
• Main Authors: Kevin Escandón-Vargas, Carlos A. Muñoz-Zuluaga, Liliana Salazar
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish
• Published: Instituto Nacional de Salud 2017
• Subjects: Rhodnius; Triatominae; microscopy; histology; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.7705/biomedica.v37i3.3304; https://doaj.org/article/f139033c8a9a4c6eb5fad6f8d26212d4

Triatomines (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) are blood-sucking insect vectors of the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi which is the causative agent of Chagas’ disease. Rhodnius prolixus is the most epidemiologically important vector of T. cruzi in Colombia. Triatomines are regarded to be vessel-feeders as they obtain their blood meals from vertebrate hosts by directly inserting their mouthparts into vessels. Microscopic techniques are useful for visualizing and describing the morphology of biological structures. Here, we show images of the blood-feeding of R. prolixus, including some histological features by light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy of the mouthparts of R. prolixus when feeding on a laboratory mouse.