The Body of Chagas Disease Vectors

Abstract

Morphometry is an effort to describe or measure the morphology of the body, or parts of it. It also provides quantitative data on the interactions of living organisms with their environment, external or internal. As a discipline, morphometrics has undergone significant developments in the last decade, making its implementation more visual and less laborious. Chagas disease vectors, often referred to by the common name of “kissing bugs”, belong to the subfamily Triatominae. Due to their apparent morphological plasticity, they have been the subject of numerous morphometric studies. Most of these have been applied taking into account the particularities of this group of vectors, such as domesticity (synanthropy), food preferences, dispersal ability, insecticide resistance, as well as some taxonomic issues. This brief review over nearly three decades is organized here according to the body organs considered by the authors.