Giant Fleas Fed on Dinosaurs With Long Serrated Suctorial Siphon
Posted on March 1, 2012
Dinosaurs also had to deal with annoying insect pests. Fossils of giant fleas (0.8 inches long) from the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous have been discovered in China. These are the oldest definitive fleas ever discovered. Unlike modern fleas, these ancient fleas were wingless. However, the fleas did have a long serrated suctorial siphon, which was used pierce the hinds of their hosts. The siphon was longer in females than in males.
Andre Nel, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and his colleagues, reports that the ancient fleas had body lengths of 14-20.6 mm in females and 8-14.7 mm in males. The larger female is pictured on the left. The fleas were about 10 times longer than modern fleas.
Nel told CNN that the fleas are not the ancestors of modern fleas, but they are in the same lineage. Modern fleas first appears around 60 million years ago.
The research was published here in the journal Nature.