This is one of the more menacingly-named groups of bugs out there. We're not sure if this is the species that carries Chagas or not, but always give them a wide berth anyway. A member of the family Reduviidae, to which belong the dreaded "kissing bug" transmitter of Chagas' disease, and others. Kissing bugs carry the protozoan for Chagas in their digestive tract. They bite you at night in an area where your skin is thin, like on the lips. Then they defecate after feeding, and when the person bitten rubs the itchy site of the bite, they rub the feces into the open wound, or a mucous membrane like an eye or nose, and contract Chagas, a disease which kills over 20,000 people each year throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Beware the blood-sucking cone-nose fellow travelers!