Monday, December 24, 2018

Case of the Week 524

Happy Holidays to all of my readers and fellow parasitologists! Here is a little holiday cheer by way of a photo and poem from Blaine:
Dashing through the fur
With modified jumping legs
O’er the hair we go
Spreading Yersinia pestis all the way! Mwa ha ha

Piercing and sucking mouthparts
Make for a painful bite!
Oh what fun it is to spread
This deadly pandemic blight!

Oh, Jingle Bugs Jingle Bugs
Jingle All the Way
Oh what fun it is to spread
Yersinia pestis all the way!

Oh, Jingle Bugs Jingle Bugs
Jingle All the Way
Oh what fun it is to spread
Yersinia pestis all the way!


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful Santa! Though most Xenopsylla cheopis measure only around 1.5mm, they do jump a good thirty centimeters distance, that's about two hundred times their body lengths. If human beings can jump like rat fleas, we can jump two or three football fields.
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research had a rat and flea identification lab inside the Pasteur Institute in Saigon to study the plague bacillus Yersinia pestis till the late 1960s and Vietnamese Medical Technologist students greatly benefitted from their rotations through WRAIR labs.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone.
Florida Fan

Sir Galahad said...

Buon Natale e Buon anno 2019

Carlo Alberto

Idzi P. said...

Have a wonderful Holiday Season everybody! Enjoy it together with family and friends!
I wish you all a good health and good parasite hunting in 2019!

Unknown said...

Very clever!
Merry Christmas Bobby

Sir Galahad said...

Big fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite' em
And little fleas have lesser fleas
And so, ad infinitum

(Filastrocca di Jonathan Swift)

Old One said...

After seeing that giant flea, I'll be itching all night.

Happy new years to everyone

Ali said...

Say hello to Santa Nosopsyllus fasciatus!
But don't expect it to bring you any gifts (besides Yersinia pestis, Rickettsia typhi, and....)
Happy holidays :)

Old One said...

While driving eastward though Nebraska several years ago, I was pass by an auto with the Iowa vanity plate that read "Pulex'. The mystery was later solved when I saw a televised report on Dr. Robert Lewis, a noted flea scientist from Iowa.

Apparently Iowa Prints a number of these " entomology vanities". You can actually summon them on a website. I was delighted to find an old friend listed. Jim Mertins, a diagnostic entomologist for the USDA. Specializing in ticks, he took the title "TICKDOC" Jim is also known for a published work were he cited arachnid references in a number Hollywood movies.