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Flea
Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, are usually brown, and have bodies that are "flattened" sideways or narrow, enabling them to move through their hosts' fur or feathers. They lack wings; their hind legs are extremely well adapted for jumping. Their claws keep them from being dislodged, and their mouthparts are adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood. They can leap 50 times their body length, a feat second only to jumps made by another group of insects, the superfamily of froghoppers. Flea larvae are worm-like, with no limbs; they have chewing mouthparts and feed on organic debris left on their hosts' skin. Genetic evidence indicates that fleas are a specialised lineage of parasitic scorpionflies (Mecoptera) ''sensu lato'', most closely related to the family Nannochor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flea Circus
A flea circus is a circus sideshow attraction in which fleas are attached (or appear to be attached) to miniature carts and other items, and encouraged to perform circus acts within a small housing. History The first records of flea performances were from watchmakers who were demonstrating their metalworking skills. In 1578, Mark Scaliot produced a lock and chain that were attached to a flea. The first recorded flea circus dates back to the early 1820s, when an Italian impresario called Louis Bertolotto advertised an “extraordinary exhibition of industrious fleas” on Regent Street, London. Some flea circuses persisted in very small venues in the United States as late as the 1960s. The flea circus at Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, Manchester, England, was still operating in 1970. In 2013, there was still at least one genuine flea circus still performing (at the annual Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany) and Svensons in the UK occasionally use real fleas, but most flea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenopsylla Cheopis
The Oriental rat flea (''Xenopsylla cheopis''), also known as the tropical rat flea or the rat flea, is a parasite of rodents, primarily of the genus '' Rattus'', and is a primary vector for bubonic plague and murine typhus. This occurs when a flea that has fed on an infected rodent bites a human, although this flea can live on any warm blooded mammal. Body structure The Oriental rat flea has no genal or pronotal combs. This characteristic can be used to differentiate the Oriental rat flea from the cat flea, dog flea, and other fleas. The flea's body is about one tenth of an inch long (about ). Its body is constructed to make it easier to jump long distances. The flea's body consists of three regions: head, thorax, and abdomen. The head and the thorax have rows of bristles (called combs), and the abdomen consists of eight visible segments. A flea's mouth has two functions: one for squirting saliva or partly digested blood into the bite, and one for sucking up blood from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium '' Yersinia pestis'' spread by fleas, but it can also take a secondary form where it is spread by person-to-person contact via aerosols causing septicaemic or pneumonic plagues. The Black Death was the beginning of the second plague pandemic. The plague created religious, social and economic upheavals, with profound effects on the course of European history. The origin of the Black Death is disputed. The pandemic originated either in Central Asia or East Asia before spreading to Crimea with the Golden Horde army of Jani Beg as he was besieging the Genoese trading port of Kaffa in Crimea (1347). From Crimea, it was most like ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yersinia Pestis
''Yersinia pestis'' (''Y. pestis''; formerly '' Pasteurella pestis'') is a gram-negative, non-motile, coccobacillus bacterium without spores that is related to both '' Yersinia pseudotuberculosis'' and '' Yersinia enterocolitica''. It is a facultative anaerobic organism that can infect humans via the Oriental rat flea (''Xenopsylla cheopis''). It causes the disease plague, which caused the first plague pandemic and the Black Death, the deadliest pandemic in recorded history. Plague takes three main forms: pneumonic, septicemic, and bubonic. ''Yersinia pestis'' is a parasite of its host, the rat flea, which is also a parasite of rats, hence ''Y. pestis'' is a hyperparasite. ''Y. pestis'' was discovered in 1894 by Alexandre Yersin, a Swiss/French physician and bacteriologist from the Pasteur Institute, during an epidemic of the plague in Hong Kong. Yersin was a member of the Pasteur school of thought. Kitasato Shibasaburō, a Japanese bacteriologist who practised K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bubonic Plague
Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium ('' Yersinia pestis''). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well as swollen and painful lymph nodes occurring in the area closest to where the bacteria entered the skin. Acral necrosis, the dark discoloration of skin, is another symptom. Occasionally, swollen lymph nodes, known as " buboes," may break open. The three types of plague are the result of the route of infection: bubonic plague, septicemic plague, and pneumonic plague. Bubonic plague is mainly spread by infected fleas from small animals. It may also result from exposure to the body fluids from a dead plague-infected animal. Mammals such as rabbits, hares, and some cat species are susceptible to bubonic plague, and typically die upon contraction. In the bubonic form of plague, the bacteria enter through the skin through a flea bite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mecoptera
Mecoptera (from the Greek language, Greek: ''mecos'' = "long", ''ptera'' = "wings") is an Order (biology), order of insects in the superorder Endopterygota with about six hundred species in nine Family (biology), families worldwide. Mecopterans are sometimes called scorpionflies after their largest family, Panorpidae, in which the males have enlarged genitals raised over the body that look similar to the stingers of scorpions, and long beaklike Rostrum (anatomy), rostra. The Bittacidae, or hangingflies, are another prominent family and are known for their elaborate mating rituals, in which females choose mates based on the quality of gift prey offered to them by the males. A smaller group is the snow scorpionflies, family Boreidae, adults of which are sometimes seen walking on snowfields. In contrast, the majority of species in the order inhabit moist environments in tropical locations. The Mecoptera are closely related to the Siphonaptera (fleas), and a little more distantly to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasitism
Parasitism is a Symbiosis, close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the Host (biology), host, causing it some harm, and is Adaptation, adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as Armillaria mellea, honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the Orobanchaceae, broomrapes. There are six major parasitic Behavioral ecology#Evolutionarily stable strategy, strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), wikt:trophic, trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), Disease vector, vector-transmitted paras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudopulicidae
Pseudopulicidae is an extinct family of stem-group fleas from the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous of China. They represent the oldest known group of stem-fleas. Like other stem-group "giant fleas", they are much larger and lack the specialised morphology of modern fleas. Description Pseudpulicids are much larger than modern fleas, varing from 8 mm to over 2cm in body length. The females of the species are always larger than the males. The body is flattened, with a non-reduced thorax, and covered in posterior facing hairs (setae). The antennae are relatively compact, with at least 16 antennomeres, and 14-17 flagellomeres. The mouthparts are siphonate, with a piercing-suctorial function, and are serrated and longer in females. The distal (outer) part of the tibia are covered in comb-like ctenidia, the tarsi are elongate, at least as long as femora and tibia combined. The male abdominal sternites are sclerotized, and the penis of the males is large and exposed. Ecology T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saurophthiridae
''Saurophthirus'' is an extinct genus of giant stem-group flea, and the only member of the family Saurophthiridae. The type species, ''S. longipes'' is found in early Cretaceous strata of Baissa, Siberia. Two other species ''S. exquisitus'' and ''S. laevigatus'' are from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of China.Gao, Taiping, et al. "New Transitional Fleas from China Highlighting Diversity of Early Cretaceous Ectoparasitic Insects." Current Biology 23.13 (2013): 1261-1266. Description Body length of largest species, ''S. longipes'' is long. They are generally seen as transitional between more primitive stem-fleas such as Pseudopulicidae and ''Tarwinia ''Tarwinia'' is an extinct genus of stem-group flea known from a single species, ''T. australis'', from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian The Aptian is an age in the geologic timescale or a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivis ...'' and modern fleas. References Siphonaptera genera Cretaceous insec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nannochoristidae
Nannochoristidae is a family of scorpionflies with many unusual traits. It is a tiny, relict family with a single extant genus, '' Nannochorista'', with eight species occurring in New Zealand, southeastern Australia, Tasmania, Argentina and Chile. Due to the groups distinctiveness from other scorpionflies, it is sometimes placed in its own order, the Nannomecoptera. Some studies have placed them as the closest living relatives of fleas. Most mecopteran larvae are eruciform, or shaped like caterpillars. Nannochoristid larvae, however, are elateriform, and have elongated and slender bodies. The larvae are aquatic, which is unique among mecopterans. The larvae are predatory, hunting on the beds of shallow streams, primarily on the larvae of aquatic Diptera like chironomids. Fossils indicate that Nannochoristidae formerly had a wider distribution, being present in the Northern Hemisphere during the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. Some research suggests the nannochoristids are t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarwiniidae
''Tarwinia'' is an extinct genus of stem-group flea known from a single species, ''T. australis'', from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian The Aptian is an age in the geologic timescale or a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early or Lower Cretaceous Epoch or Series and encompasses the time from 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma to 113.0 ± 1.0 Ma (million years ag ...) Koonwarra Fossil Bed of Victoria, Australia, it is the only member of the family Tarwiniidae, and the only stem-group flea known from the Southern Hemisphere. References {{Taxonbar, from1=Q21315090, from2=Q21334053, from3=Q35082361 Prehistoric invertebrates of Australia Fleas Prehistoric insect genera Early Cretaceous insects ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plague Of Justinian
The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (541–549 AD) was the first recorded major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. The disease afflicted the entire Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Near East, severely affecting the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire and especially Constantinople. The plague is named for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) who according to his court historian Procopius contracted the disease and recovered in 542, at the height of the epidemic which killed about a fifth of the population in the imperial capital. The contagion arrived in Roman Egypt in 541, spread around the Mediterranean Sea until 544, and persisted in Northern Europe and the Arabian Peninsula, until 549. In 2013, researchers confirmed earlier speculation that the cause of the plague of Justinian was ''Yersinia pestis'', the same bacterium responsible ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
