Afrocimex constrictus or The African bat bug is an Egyptian parasite bug. They live on Egyptian fruit bats. There can be up to 15 bugs on each bat! They drain roughly 1-28 micro-litres once a week per bat. But the most fascinating thing about African bat bugs is the way they mate.
A male bat bug has a sharp penis and instead of inserting it into the female genitals they stab their penis into the female’s stomach and inject their sperm straight into the blood stream!
After doing extra some research I found that the females have grown ‘paragenitals’, these are to guide the male genitals into spongy immune cells. By the way they look a lot like bed bugs, the only way to tell them apart is to take a sample to an entomologist so he/she can analyse it because the difference between a bed bug and a bat bug is minuscule.
I found this horror on the national geographic website. On this page it talks about the African bat bugs who have grown fake genitalia to avoid being injured.
If you would like to read more on the expedition,
Here is a Link to the national geographic website.
.jpg)
Posts
