True Bugs (Hemiptera)

This group gathers Insects subcategory members belonging to the order Hemiptera, the true bugs, united by piercing, needle-like mouthparts used to feed on plant sap, other insects' body fluids, or, in a few blood-feeding members, on vertebrate blood. It spans the cicadas, famous for the long underground nymphal stage some species spend before a brief, loud-singing adult life, the aphids and their relatives the leafhoppers and spittlebugs, tiny sap-feeders that can rapidly damage crops, the true water bugs, including the backswimmers and water boatmen, which swim upside down or right-side up respectively using paddle-like hind legs, the shield-shaped stink bugs, and the assassin and kissing bugs, ambush predators of other insects, several of the latter also known to transmit disease through their bite.