Hualapai tiger n Also sp Walapai tiger, Wallapai ~, Walpai ~ [Hualapai, an Amer Ind tribe with a reservation in northeastern Arizona, whose name also appears in many place-names in the area; tiger may allude to the striped appearance of some assassin bugs.] AZ
= assassin bug n.
1904 AZ Silver Belt (Globe) 18 Aug 2/1, Henry Clay, of Williamson valley, was bitten last week on the thigh by a bug known as a “Wallapai tiger.” . . Almost immediately after being bitten he became unconscious, in which condition he remained for some time. 1939 in 1942 S. CA Acad. Sci. Bulletin 41.63 AZ, A young man stopped in one day when we had a live one here and said in Arizona where he came from they called those insects ‘Walapai tigers’. 1957 Westways Jan 10 AZ, The Old Timer diagnosed the welts as bites by a Walpai tiger. . . He said one bite could half-kill a well person and two bites on a “feller as stove up” as I was would probably kill him. 1967 Bourne Woman in Levi’s 163 AZ, The worst are scorpions, black widows, tarantulas, burning worms, and bellows bugs—also known as “Hualapai tigers,” or, in Spanish, chinches. 2014 in 2015 DARE File—Internet AZ, After she [=a cat] first joined us, pests like the insect kingdom’s response to the vampire, the “Hualapai Tiger”, quickly disappeared, with no ground squirrel dens left to inhabit.