43

HEMIPTERA O F MEDICAL INTEREST IN THE SUDAN REPUBLIC

By D. J. LEWIS] (Care of the Br*h Huaeum (Ncltural HLtory))

THE distribution of the two species of bed-bug in the Sudan was described by Lewis (1949) ; the present paper adds to this and records a number of minor pests, most of them plant sucking or predaceous species which sometimes cause annoyance by biting-piercing or partly piercing-human skin, and a few other examples of the relation between Hemiptera and man.

Initials in brackets refer to collectors mentioned in the section on acknowledgments.

CYDNIDAE Geotomus pygmeus Dallas, which is found at Wad Medani, is one of the

Hemiptera which sometimes enter houses and earn the name of stink bugs.

PENTATOMIDAE Agonoscelis versicolor Fabricius, known in Arabic as the andat, is a pest of

millet, and is sometimes collected and boiled for fat or distilled for tar (Tothill and others, 1948 : 314). The tar, known as gutran el an&&, is said to be useful for treating camel mange, and Mr. L. George has given me an account of the method of preparing it, which he observed in Kassala Province in 1942. The bugs had gathered in trees, and all the people of Babanusa and El Buweida villages were busy in the early morning brushing the bugs on to mats and taking them to the villages in sacks. They were killed with boiling water and crushed on a millet-grinding stone or between two flat stones, boiled with a little water, and placed in a twisted cloth or m l w a y a from which an oily liquid was squeezed out. This was put in a jar, and when oil rose to the top it was skimmed off and boiled to remove traces of water, the h a 1 product being brown and smelling strongly like the andat. People near Wad Bakr were busy harvesting, and therefore used another method which yielded an inferior gutran. The bugs were placed over a fire, in an inverted narrow-necked clay vessel out of which liquid dripped and was collected.

Aethemenes chloris Westwood is another of the Pentatomids which assemble in large numbers. It occurs in the central rainlands and gathers in clusters in the isolated rocky hills such as Ghadambaliya, where it causes much annoyance by entering houses (R. V. J.). This species also occurs at Lui in the southern Sudan, where it is eaten by human beings, as are a clustering species in Southern Rhodesia (Bodenheimer, 1951) and some species in Assam (Strickland, 1932). Piezodorus teretipes SGl has been found in a house at Wad Medani.

Scientific staff, Medical Research Council ; formerly Entomologist, Medical Research Laboratories, Sudan Ministry of Health.

PROC. R. ENT. SOC. LOND. (A) 33. PTS. 1-3. (MARCH, 1958).

44 D. J. Lewis on Hemiptera of medical

A species of Mecidea bit a man at El Hobagi in the north-western desert region (H. J. M.)

LYGAEIDAE The small pale waxy-looking bug, Leptodemus bicolor Lindberg var. ventralis

Lindberg is sometimes troublesome in the desert area around Wadi Halfa, and occurs in Egypt (Priesner, 1953). On 8th October, 1944, it was biting people at six railway stations south of Wadi Halfa and was said to cause irri- tation and fever (S. M. M.). On 19th August, 1948, specimens were taken while biting people on the aerodrome and near cultivated land near Wadi Halfa, and sent for identification by the Public Health Inspector (M. 0. Z.). Bugs which are probably of this species have been received from Uweinat, where they were thought to be sandflies, and from Kufra Oasis in the Libyan desert. The bite of another Lygaeid, Lep todmm bicolor Iak, in Cyrenaica is said to be worse than that of a sandfly (Bergevin, 1925). L. minutus (Jackowleff) is reported by Foley (1929) to attack people in the Hoggar.

A species of Nysius and one of Orthea ( P a m r a ) have been seen to prick human skin at Wad Medani, the latter causing some irritation.

PYRRHOCORIDAE A nymph of a species of Pyrrhocorid was found in the burrow of a ground

squirrel a t Wad Medani (H. H.), but it is not known if the bug had any associa- tion with this animal.

REDUMIDAE Among species which have been known to inflict a painful bite when accident-

ally disturbed are Eremvescia lewisi Miller (1951) a t Wad Medani and another Reduviid a t Mvolo.

Pasira basiptera StAl was found to pierce human skin at Wad Medani. Two species of Triatoma were taken in tropical Africa by Emin Pasha, who

spent many years in the Sudan, and described by Neiva (1911), but their place of origin is not known.

CIMICIDAE Additional localities for the tropical bed-bug, C i m hemipterus (Fabr.),

are Kajo Kaji, Mvolo and the Saburi Hills, and, for C. lectubrius L., Kelling, Kronga, Suni, Torme (all on Jebel Marra), Durraba and Damira el Tom.

Leptocimx vespertilionis Ferris and Usinger, 1957, is very similar to the spider-like L. boueti Brumpt, 1910, a parasite of man in North-west Africa, which has been erroneously referred to by Herms (1950) as “ C. boueti Joyeux, the tropical bed-bug of Africa and South America”. L. vespertilionis is only known from the Sudan Republic, where it has been found at Zeidab (the type locality) and Khartoum. Bugs which are almost certainly of this species have been taken at Roseires, and in a bat roost behind some shutters on the Research Farm library at Wad Medani. On one occasion complaints of bugs in a club at Wad Medani led to the discovery of L e p t o c i w in a bedroom and bats in the roof.

Loxaspis miranda (Rothschild) has been found in a bat-infested store at Gogrial (P. Z. M.).

interest in the Sudan Republic 45

Kassianoff (1956) suggested that, from among the many Cimicid parasites of animals, three species, C. hemipterus, C. lectubrius and L. b m t i have para- sitised man and flourished in the favourable environment of human dwellings. Although insects have been studied in the Sudan for 60 years, only one report has been received of Leptocimex entering a room, and it is likely that L. vespertilionis only makes occasional brief incursions into houses. Lewis (1949) found that C. lectularius, although a long-established parasite of man, was still spreading in the Sudan as a result of the development of communications. C . hemipterus occurred mainly in remote districts such as the Nuba Hills, and it is surprising that it was not seen during recent collections on the massif of Jebel Marra.

Crassicimx sexualis Ferris and Usinger is only known from Ikotos, where Mr. J. Owen found it on a bat.

ANTHOCORIDAE King (1906) gave a preliminary description of a " Reduviid '' which inflicted

a painful bite on October evenings, and published a figure of it, which has been reproduced by Brumpt (1910) and Villiers (1952). Brumpt (1910) named it Anthocoris kingi without further description. Piezostethus afer Reuter has been known to bite, causing irritation and swelling, at Wad Medani.

POLYCTENIDAE Eoctenes dntermedius (Speiser) (=elcnomicus (Kellog and Paine)) was found

on a bat at Khartoum, according to Kellog and Paine (1911).

MIRIDAE Camptotylus yersini Mulsant and Rey was found biting out of doors at

Darner, and a species of Psallus was seen trying to pierce human skin at Wad Medani. Creotiades pallidus Rambur, a pest of cotton, sometimes bites people in the field at Tokar (A. G.).

BELOSTOMATIDAE Lethocerus niloticus StHl is sometimes received for identihation because

its large size and conspicuous appearance attract attention. It kills a few of the Garnbusia fish which are kept in stock ponds at Wad Medani for mosquito control.

JASSIDAE When cotton was sprayed at night in the Gezira to kill Jassids the insects

sometimes inflicted irritating bites on the operators of the machines. A species of Erythroneura and one of Deltocephalus were seen at Wad Medani, piercing and probing the skin respectively. Euscelis curtipes and a bug which may be an Aconura, according to Myers (1929), were described by Lindberg (1927) from specimens said to have sucked human blood in October at Ehartoum. E. vulnerans Bergevin has been found biting there, and another species probed human skin a t Wad Medani. Thamnotettix cellulosa was des-

46 D. J. Lewis on Hemiptera of medical

cribed by Lindberg, who reported that it sucked human blood a t Khartoum, and two species of this genus were said to bite at Wad Medani.

THE OCCASIONAL BITING OF MAN BY HEMIPTERA Species which occasionally pierce the human skin have been discussed by

Blacklock (1923)) Myers (1929)) Usinger (1934) and H e m (1950), and it appears that the habit is partly due to hunger and to the attraction of human sweat. These causes probably operate in the Sudan, where most of the above- mentioned examples were obtained out of doors in the desert or semi-desert regions of the country, or indoors a t Wad Medani, where they had probably become hungry while flying round lights. The biting species are distributed among six families and, as Myers (1929) found, are particularly numerous among the Jassidae. It is likely that many other species sometimes bite but have not been collected. Many of the bugs do not succeed in sucking blood, but some of them are much more irritating than certain blood-sucking flies.

SUMMARY Most of the species recorded are minor pests and include Pentatomids,

which enter houses, and members of the Pentatomidae, Lygaeidae, Reduviidae, Anthocoridae, Miridae and Jassidae which sometimes cause irritation by piercing, or trying to pierce, the human skin.

Four species of Cimicidae occur in the Sudan.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to Mr. L. George, Dr. A. Goodman, Mr. H. Hoogstraal,

Mr. R. V. Joyce, Mr. P. Z. McKenzie, M.B.E., Mr. S. M. Mahmud, Mr. H. J . Morris and Mr. M. 0. Zubeir for sending specimens or information ; and to the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology and Dr. W. E. China and his colleagues a t the British Museum (Natural History) for identifying many specimens.

REFERENCES BERGEVIN, E., 1925, Les Hemipteres suceurs de sang humain

BLACKLOCK, B., 1923, A pyrrhocorid bug capable of biting man.

BODENHEIMER, F. S., 1951, Insects as human food. BRUMPT, E., 1910, Prdcis de parasitologie. Paris. FERRIS, G. F. and USINGER, R. L., 1957, Notes on and descriptions of Cimicidae

BOLEY, H., 1929, Sur divers arthropodes piqueurs observes au coups de la mission

HERMS, W. B., 1950, Medical entomology. KASSIANOFF, L., 1936, Etude rnorphologique de la farnille des Cimicides. Paris. KELLOG, V. L. and PAINE, J. H., 1911, Anoplura and Mallophaga from African

Bull. ent. Res. 2 : 145-52. KING, H. H., 1906, A blood-sucking hemipteron. LEWIS, D. J., 1949, The distribution of Cimicidae in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

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interest in the Sudan Republic 47

LINDBERQ, H., 1927, Trois nouveaux Jassidae du Sudan. Bull. SOC. Hist. nut.

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