| Parasite |
argument |
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Ryckman and Archbold (1981)Ryckman RE, Archbold EF 1981. The Triatominae and Triatominae-borne trypanosomes of Asia, Africa, Australia and the East Indies. Bull Soc Vector Ecologists 6: 143-166. noted that although T. rubrofasciata is the host of Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma conorhini in the New World, it had never met with T. cruzi in the Old World. This argument convinced them that T. rubrofasciata arrived in the New World with its natural parasite, T. conorhini, and was secondarily infected by T. cruzi.
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The probability of being infected by T. cruzi a few centuries ago was not necessarily the same as today. The geographical expansion of T. cruzi to domestic animals (like Rattus rattus) in the Americas was the result of massive migration of domestic vectors like Triatoma infestans, Rhodnius prolixus or Triatoma dimidiata, that occurred only very recently (Schofield 1988, Dujardin 1998Schofield C 1988. Biosystematics of Triatominae. In Biosystematics of haematophagous insects, MW Service (ed.), Systematics Association Special, Vol. 37, Oxford, Clarendon Press, p. 287-312.). |
| It has been suggested that the Asian monkey Macaca was the natural host of T. conorhini (Deane et al. 1986Deane LM, Deane MP, Lourenço-de-Oliveira R 1986. Are Asian monkeys the original mammalian hosts of Trypanosoma conorhini? Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 81: 127-129., Miles 2013Miles M 2013. Trypanosoma (Megatrypanum) conorhini. Proceedings of the Epidemiological Status of Kissing Bugs in Vietnam Workshop, 2013 Jun 17-21, Hanoi, Vietnam, NAFOSTED, Hanoi, p. 70-76.). |
It is not unlikely that the Macaca reared in a South American laboratory could have been infected during their transportation to other continents. |
| Insect |
argument |
| There are other Triatoma species in Asia, not only rubrofasciata (Table I). |
T. rubrofasciata would be the common ancestor of the other Asiatic species, including Linshcosteus (Hypsa et al. 2002Hypsa V, Tietz DF, Zrzavy J, Rego ROM, Galvão G, Jurberg J 2002. Phylogeny and biogeography of Triatominae (Hemiptera: Reduviidae): molecular evidence of a New World origin of the Asiatic clade. Mol Phylogenet Evol 23: 447-457.). |
| The first collections of T. rubrofasciata were Asian. In fact, the species described by De Geer 1773 was collected aux Indes (believed to indicate the then Dutch East Indies or Indonesia). It represents the type species of the genus Triatoma. |
Morphometric and molecular studies (Gorla et al. 1997Gorla DE, Dujardin J-P, Schofield CJ 1997. Biosystematics of Old World Triatominae. Acta Trop 63: 127-140., Patterson et al. 2001Patterson JS, Schofield CJ, Dujardin J-P, Miles MA 2001. Population morphometric analysis of the tropicopolitan bug Triatoma rubrofasciata and relationships with Old World species of Triatoma: evidence of New World ancestry. Med Vet Entomol 15: 443-451., Hypsa et al. 2002Hypsa V, Tietz DF, Zrzavy J, Rego ROM, Galvão G, Jurberg J 2002. Phylogeny and biogeography of Triatominae (Hemiptera: Reduviidae): molecular evidence of a New World origin of the Asiatic clade. Mol Phylogenet Evol 23: 447-457., Hwang & Weirauch 2012Hwang WS, Weirauch C 2012. Evolutionary history of assassin bugs (Insecta: Hemiptera: Reduviidae): insights from divergence dating and ancestral state reconstruction. PLoS ONE 7: e45523.) suggest a New World origin for the “Asiatic clade” of Triatominae. |
