A tropical insect which is not thought to have been found in Europe before has been discovered in Sussex.

The dead bug was found inside a sleeping bag but experts are baffled how it got there because the owner had not been out of the country.

It was identified at the Booth Museum in Brighton as an extremely rare triatomine insect, unknown in Britain or Europe and usually found only in the tropics.

Disease

In South America the bloodsucking insect, often known as the kissing bug or assassin bug, spreads the deadly chagas disease, which affects millions of people from Mexico to Argentina.

The insect was discovered in Hastings.

The Booth Museum's keeper of biology, Dr Gerald Legg, who identified it, said the bug had never been found in Britain before and probably not in Europe.

He said: "It was dead when we got it and it is a mystery where it came from. We are intrigued to know where the sleeping bag may have come from."

One of the insect's legs has been sent to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for DNA testing to confirm whether it is a triatomine bug.

The school's Chagas disease specialist Prof Michael Miles said the surprise discovery probably originated in the Far East and was of a variety not known to spread the killer infection.

He said: "It is no cause for concern for this country because there is no evidence that a live insect was ever in this country."

The one-inch long beetle-like bug, with black and brown markings, uses a tube under its head to suck blood from its victims.

Environmental health officials at Hastings Borough Council will not say who handed in the bug or where in the town it was found.

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