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Sampling of blood from small and/or wild animals is very difficult since the animals are very stressed and can be severely affected by conventional sampling and/or anesthesia.Triatomines are the largest blood-sucking insects and feed on all warm-blooded animals including warm-blooded amphibia and reptiles.These insects develop through five larval instars, which ingest increasing amounts of blood and store it in the distensible stomach.There, it is concentrated by the withdrawal of the fluid components and remains essentially undigested.Since the blood can be withdrawn easily with a syringe and used for determination of blood and physiological parameters and for the identification of pathogens, triatomines offer a non-invasive method to obtain blood samples.