Impurest's Guide to Animals #10 - African Bat Bug

Issue #10, wow I assumed that I wouldn't get this far so before we get started I’d like to say a big thank you to all my readers. Last week the hideous Bobbit Worm was in the spotlight. As bad as the Bobbit was however, this week’s animal’s sadistic behaviour eclipses it in gruesomeness. Hope you guys (enjoy may not be the right word here) learn something.

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Issue #10 – African Bat Bug

Kingdom – Animalia

Phylum – Arthropoda

Class – Insecta

Order – Hemiptera

Family – Cimicidae

Genus – Afrocimex

Species – constrictus

Related Species - The African Bat Bug is a member of the Cimicidae Family which includes humanities own bed side parasite the Bed Bug (Cimex lectularis) (1)

Range - The African Bat Bug is only found in a few remote caves in East Africa

Sex, Blood and Violence

The African Bat Bug is a small rust coloured insect with a flattened abdomen which inhabits a few select caves in Eastern Africa. The species is parasitic and feeds solely on the blood of the Egyptian Fruit Bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus) using a long tubular organ called a proboscis. Since Bat Bugs, like all true bugs, have no movable jaws they rely on suction and changes in pressure to feed. Bat Bugs themselves are preyed on by other cave invertebrates such as centipedes and whip scorpions.

In most bugs the proboscis serves only as a feeding structure or occasionally as a defensive weapon. Members of the Cimicidae Family, however also use it as a reproductive organ and practice a mating strategy known as traumatic insemination. The African Bat Bug has taken this process to the extreme with the males injecting sperm directly into the female’s blood stream. This process is so traumatic that somewhere in their evolutionary past the females evolved an organ called paragenitals to redirect the male’s proboscis to an area of immune cells in the rear of the insect.

In a bizarre twist it has been recently discovered that male African Bat Bugs due to the large number of male on male attacks that occur have evolved their own paragenitals to block intrusion by another male’s proboscis. There is even evidence that some females modify their own structures to resemble the males once they are carrying fertilized eggs to reduce the likelihood of a fatal sexually motivated attack (3).

Five Fun African Bat Bug Facts

An Egyptian Fruit Bat can have as many as fifteen Bat Bugs feeding on it at the same time.

Despite this each Bat Bug needs around 28 microlitres in a week to survive. In essence a Bat with fifteen parasites only loses 0.5ml of blood a week (3)

Some Male African Bat Bugs welcome homosexual attention. It’s believed that once in the blood stream a male will eat the sperm of his rival to supplement his blood based diet

Bat Bugs may rely on Bats for most of their sustenance but a hungry insect will happily feed on the blood of any warm blooded prey if it’s available.

Not that you should worry about transmission of disease from such a bite. Despite feeding on blood the anti-bacterial saliva and super efficient immune system of both Bed and Bat Bugs destroys the pathogens in any infected blood they drink (4)

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Bibliography

(1) - www.arkive.org

(2) - - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070925-bat-bugs_2.html

(3) - K. Reinhardt, R. Naylor, M. Siva-Jothy, Estimating the mean abundance and feeding rate of a temporal ectoparasite in the wild: Afrocimex constrictus (Heteroptera: Cimicidae). International Journal for Parasitology, Vol 37, pp. 937-942, July 2007

(4) - http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/bedbugs/faqs.html

Picture References

[1] - http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--21TzhomX--/18ginskaetph7jpg.jpg

[2] - http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/images/2105a_1.jpg

[3] - http://www.bedsbatgroup.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/african-bat-bugs.jpg

Hope you guys enjoyed the insight into this disgusting little parasite. Drop me a comment with an animal you want explored in the next issue

@laflux, @cbishop, @ostyo, @wildvine, @project_worm, @delphic, @cattlebattle, @samimista, @cattlebattle, @xwraith, @bruxae, @jaken7, @warlock360, @deadite and @batkevin74

Time for our first parasite. Those people who like outrageus mating behaviour will enjoy this issue

@impurestcheese: You enjoy giving us nightmares.

@ostyo: Yep pretty much. Next weeks animal is a lot less nightmarish I promise

@impurestcheese: Yep, Sexual conflict at its best/worst. I remembering studying a Module of Sexual Behavior earlier this year, and seeing this. I think being a Female Weevil would be just as bad though >:(

Keep up the good work :)

@laflux: You must be thinking of the Cowpea Weevil. And yes it's almost as bad as the African Bat Bug but slightly less sadistic. Thanks for the comment. :-)

Well, it's nice to see this critter just kicks evolution in the face any chance he has. "I need a new organ for some reason" *grows new organ*

Why is there no Batman villain modeled after this bug??

@cattlebattle: Yep it's sexual warfare at it's worst. And no I don't know why there is no Bat bug villain for the Dark Knight.

@cgoodness: Yep Bat Bugs are allergic to fire just like most living things

@impurestcheese:

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oh and i recommend this animal next

This is just amazing. 0.0 When I first saw the title I thought it was about a bat who looks like a bug? XD Interesting though how it eats on Egyptian Fruit Bats.

Very cool blog! =D

It's different than I expected - I thought it would be a bug the same shape and size as a bat.

@samimista: Nope that would be odd

@Xwraith: Nope it's a bat eating bug

@cgoodness: Sea Lamprey hmm

@impurestcheese: I unfortunately had to skip this one... didn't want to be freaked out more than I already am. Still, dem outrageous mating habits pique my interest... THE CONLICT!

@project_worm: Yep the conflict. As mentioned above the Bat Bug isn't so much engaged in survival of the fittest as it is sexual warfare

@impurestcheese: But- isn't sexual warfare a type of survival of the fittest?

@project_worm: Sure except when you're trying to kill any sexual partners you have

@impurestcheese: Man... bugs are kinky as hell..

@project_worm: Yep these ones definitely are

@impurestcheese Evolve something like para genitals due to how painful male's mating method is, now that really blew my mind.

Recently, I learned about ducks' mating practice, and there's also evolutionary passage the female took to avoid male genital attack, maybe I'm remembering the wrong animal. But other than learning how bizarre the male ducks' genital are, there I also remember learning about gender evolution war. It's a concept I just was never exposed to before, this part of the evolution is like conflicting, murderous genetic sequence, makes me wonder how far something like this could go, if an evolution continue to push on to the kind of direction these species are taking.

@deadite: Yep and you are right about 'dem ducks'. And probably the next step for female bat bugs would be to reduce by pathogenesis (virgin birth) and do away with the males completely.

That would be practical. That gives the sense that evolution has a mind of its own, like there's something creeping behind all this, like there's feelings.

Imagine that the male ducks still exist after the virgin birth evolution is unlocked, I wonder what they would be like? Would some of the female bat bugs still allow male to take part in the reproduction? Or would they just disappear from the species' genetic codes, effectively removing their existence. Both scenarios would be interesting.

@deadite: To answer that I direct your attention to the New Mexico Whiptail Lizard a species who gives birth to unhealthy male offspring. Because the male gender is so rare in the population and so rarely reaches adulthood the females breed mostly through pathogenesis. The resulting offspring are clones of the mothers and thus share the same genetics, thus making all her offspring female. In other words in most population the males don't exist. That said pathogenesis reduces the gene pool and while good in the short term makes the species vulnerable to genetic problems.

Most animals that reproduce by parthenogenesis can still give birth via secual reporoduction though. Komodo Dragons and Bonnethead Sharks are just some of the examples of isolated mothers giving birth without male intervention despite never showing signs of this in the wild.

Now the African Bat Bug has a card made...

I don't know if I should be impressed or horrified by how these bugs procreate. Either way, I like the word paragenitals.

@hislolita: Horrified is the right word. Impressed (even at paragenitals) is just wrong