In his book The Black Death transformed, Samuel K Cohn claims that the epidemic disease described in western European historical sources from AD 1347 to the midseventeenth century under the names plague, pestis, pestilence, plagen and the like must have been a disease other than the modern plague that reached Hong Kong in May 1894 from other parts of China, and later spread first to India and t...

Quantifying the abundance of host-seeking fleas is critical for assessing risk of human exposure to flea-borne disease agents, including Yersinia pestis, the etiological agent of plague. Yet, reliable measures of the efficacy of existing host-seeking flea collection methods are lacking. In this study, we compare the efficacy of passive and active methods for the collection of host-seeking fleas...

Commensal and field rodents and wild small carnivores were live-trapped in five villages of Karatu district and one settlement in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Ngorongoro district in Tanzania. Blood samples were taken and serologically tested for plague, using the Blocking ELISA technique. Some domestic dogs and cats in the Karatu villages were aseptically bled and similarly tested for pl...

To test relationships between maternal size, egg size and size of new offspring, we studied (a) the effect of maternal size on egg size and number, and maternal survival after oviposition and (b) the effect of egg size on the duration of development and new imago size in three flea species (Xenopsylla ramesis, Synosternus cleopatrae, Parapulex chephrenis) with varying host and habitat specifici...

Mechanisms that regulate parasite populations may influence the evolution of hosts and parasites, as well as the stability of host-parasite dynamics but are still poorly understood. A manipulation experiment on the grooming ability of rodent hosts (Meriones crassus) and flea (Xenopsylla conformis) densities on these hosts successfully disentangled two possible regulating mechanisms: (i) behavio...

Alien tick species of the genera Ixodes, Amblyomma, Hyalomma and Rhipicephalus are sporadically transferred to the territories of the Central European countries. A biological-medical review of the following alien tick species transferred to Poland is presented: Ixodes eldaricus, Ixodes festai, Amblyomma sphenodonti, Amblyomma exornatumn, Amblyomma flavomaculatum, Amblyomma latum, Amblyomma nutt...

The present scanning electron microscopic (SEM) study includes the redescription of female Laelaps nuttalli with emphasis on its gnathosoma and pulvilli which were rarely described in superfamily Dermanyssoidea. Chaetotaxy of dorsal shield revealed 40 pairs of setae, 22 on prosoma and 18 on opisthosoma. Epigynial plate carried 4 pairs of setae. Gnathosoma consisted of long basis capituli carryi...

Ixodid ticks were collected from 104 wild carnivores belonging to 23 species in various nature reserves and on several farms in all nine provinces of South Africa. Seven feral cats in a nature reserve were also examined. Twenty-four tick species belonging to seven genera were recovered and identified. Amongst these ticks we consider the adults of Haemaphysalis leachi, Haemaphysalis spinulosa, H...

BACKGROUND Prisons in Madagascar are at high risk of plague outbreak. Occurrence of plague epidemic in prisons can cause significant episode of urban plague through the movement of potentially infected humans, rodents and fleas. Rodent and flea controls are essential in plague prevention, by reducing human contact with plague reservoirs and vectors. Insecticide treatment is the key step availab...