In the spring of 1835, Charles Darwin was bitten in Argentina by a “great wingless black bug,” he wrote in his diary.

“It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, about an inch long, crawling over one’s body,” Darwin wrote, “before sucking they are quite thin, but afterwards round & bloated with blood.”

Biologist Lori Stevens of the University of Vermont finds a surpring number of kissing bugs in the US contain human blood. Half of them also carry a potentially deadly parasite, which can cause Chagas disease. Is the kissing bug speading as a consequence of climate warming?

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