The Giant Fleas which Sucked Dino Blood | Parasitober

Everyone knows the flea. It’s a small insect you can only barely see with the naked eye. It’s notorious for sucking the blood of just about anything it lands on. This springy insect uses the junk in its trunk to hold a large dollop of icky sticky blood it sucks from its hosts with a needle-like proboscis betraying its true evolutionary affinities. What you may not know is that if we travel back 100 million years, relatives to today’s fleas were bugging the largest animals to ever walk on land or fly in the sky; the Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs. For the last episode of Parasitober, let’s take a look at the giant fleas that sucked dino blood! __________________________________________________________________ ✅ PATREON ✅ __________________________________________________________________ ✅ STICKERS & SHIRTS ✅ __________________________________________________________________ I do not own the images, music, or video used in this video, all rights and credit goes to the original owners. __________________________________________________________________ My Links - Like and Subscribe for more videos! ✅Facebook: ✅Twitter: ✅Instagram: @edgeonthetrail __________________________________________________________________ Hashtags - #Flea #Parasite #Vampire __________________________________________________________________ Resources - Gao et al. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014, 14:168 Diying Huang, Tarwinia australis (Siphonaptera: Tarwiniidae) from the Lower Cretaceous Koonwarra fossil bed: Morphological revision and analysis of its evolutionary relationship, Cretaceous Research, Volume 52, Part B, 2015, Pages 507-515, ISSN 0195-6671, Tai-ping Gao, Chung-kun Shih, Xing Xu, Shuo Wang, Dong Ren, Mid-Mesozoic Flea-like Ectoparasites of Feathered or Haired Vertebrates, Current Biology, Volume 22, Issue 8, 2012, Pages 732-735, ISSN 0960-9822, Poinar GO Jr. Palaeontology: the 165-million-year itch. Curr Biol. 2012 Apr 24;22(8):R278-80. doi: PMID: 22537632. Taiping Gao, Chungkun Shih, Alexandr P. Rasnitsyn, Xing Xu, Shuo Wang, Dong Ren, New Transitional Fleas from China Highlighting Diversity of Early Cretaceous Ectoparasitic Insects, Current Biology, Volume 23, Issue 13, 2013, Pages 1261-1266, ISSN 0960-9822, Qiyun Zhu, Michael W. Hastriter, Michael F. Whiting, Katharina Dittmar, Fleas (Siphonaptera) are Cretaceous, and evolved with Theria, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 90, 2015, Pages 129-139, ISSN 1055-7903, A. P. Rasnitsyn, “Strashila Incredibilis, a New Enigmatic Mecopteroid Insect With Possible Siphonapteran Affinities From the Upper Jurassic of Siberia“, Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, vol. 99, Article ID 020491, 11 pages, :// Yanjie Zhang, Chungkun Shih, Alexandr P. Rasnitsyn, Dong Ren, and Taiping Gao Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 65 (1), 2020: 99-107 doi: Huang D Y, Engel M S, Cai C Y, et al. Mesozoic giant fleas from northeastern China (Siphonaptera): Taxonomy and implications for palaeodiversity. Chin Sci Bull, 2013, 58: 16821690, doi: Diying Huang, The diversity and host associations of Mesozoic giant fleas, National Science Review, Volume 1, Issue 4, December 2014, Pages 496–497, Rasnitsyn, A.P., Strelnikova, O.D. Tracheal system and biology of the Early Cretaceous Saurophthirus longipes Ponomarenko, 1976 (Insecta, ?Aphaniptera, Saurophthiroidea stat. nov.). Paleontol. J. 51, 171–182 (2017). Rasnitsyn, A.P., Strelnikova, O.D. Digestive System of the Early Cretaceous Insect Saurophthirus longipes Ponomarenko (Insecta, ?Aphaniptera, Saurophthiroidea).Paleontol. J. 52, 146–154 (2018). Keskin A. A New Flea Species of the Genus Palaeopsylla (Insecta: Siphonaptera: Ctenophthalmidae) From Turkey. J Med Entomol. 2020 Jan 9;57(1):88-91. doi: PMID: 31553043. Shcherbakov, Dmitry. (2017). Cretaceous Saurophthiridae (Aphaniptera) as pupiparous pre-fleas of diving pterosaurs. Paleontological Journal. 51. 183-185. __________________________________________________________________ Chapters Intro 00:00-04:48 Flea Biology 04:48-12:59 Fossil Fleas 12:59-27:32 Take Home Message 27:32-30:32