For this episode, Nature Notes is teaming up with “West Texas Wonders” – a new reporting series where listeners ask questions and Marfa Public Radio finds answers.

This week, a question from Rachel Monroe of Marfa. Monroe was preparing recently for a Big Bend river trip. It was summer, and she thought she and her companion, a park ranger, could sleep in the open air, under the stars. But the ranger rejected that idea – emphatically. The borderlands, the ranger said, are home to a blood-sucking insect known as the cone-nose or kissing bug. And the insect can transmit a fatal disease.

“My impression was that they would bite you, and it was one of those situations where you woul...