Fig. 2.—Bedbug: Adult before engorgement. Much enlarged. (Author's illustration.) The bedbug belongs to the order Hemiptera, which includes the true bugs or piercing insects, characterized by possessing a piercing and sucking beak. The bedbug is to man what the chinch bug is to grains or the squash bug to cucurbs. Like nearly all the insects parasitic on animals, however, it is degraded structurally, its parasitic nature and the slight necessity for extensive locomotion having resulted, after many ages doubtless, in the loss of wings and the assumption of a comparatively simple structure. Before feeding, the adult (fig. 2) is much flattened, oval, and in color is rust red, with the abdomen more or less tinged with black. When engorged the body becomes much bloated and elongated and brightly colored from the ingested blood. The wings are represented by the merest rudiments, barely recognizable pads, and the simple eyes or ocelli |