The first flea with fully distended abdomen from the Early Cretaceous of China

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Dong Ren⁴  Shuo Wang²  Xing Xu³  Alexandr P Rasnitsyn¹  Chungkun Shih⁴  Taiping Gao⁴ 

[1] Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK;Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19 Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China;Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Key Laboratory of Evolutionary Systematics of Vertebrates, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 142 Xiwai Street, Beijing 100044, China;College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, 105 Xisanhuanbeilu, Beijing 100048, China

关键词: Pseudopulex;    Pseudopulicidae;    Siphonaptera;    Blood sucking;    Mesozoic;   

Others  :  1117999
DOI  :  10.1186/s12862-014-0168-1

 received in 2014-04-11, accepted in 2014-07-21,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Fleas, the most notorious insect ectoparasites of human, dogs, cats, birds, etc., have recently been traced to its basal and primitive ancestors during the Middle Jurassic. Compared with extant fleas, these large basal fleas have many different features. Although several fossil species with transitional morphologies filled the evolutionary blank, the early evolution of these ectoparasites is still poorly known.

Results

Here we report a new flea with transitional characters, Pseudopulex tanlan sp. nov., assigned to Pseudopulicidae, from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province, China. Different from the previously described pseudopulicids, P. tanlan has relatively smaller body size but lacking any ctenidia on the tibiae or body, while the male with comparatively smaller and shorter genitalia. On the other hand, P. tanlan has some characters similar to the transitional fleas of saurophthirids, such as, a small head, short compacted antennae, small pygidium and many stiff setae covering the body.

Conclusions

Even though other possibilities can not be ruled out, the female specimen with extremely distended abdomen suggests that it might have consumed its last meal before its demise. Compared with other reported female flea fossils, we calculate and estimate that P. tanlan sp. nov. might have consumed 0.02 milliliter (ml) of blood, which is about 15 times of the intake volume by extant fleas. These new findings further support that fleas had evolved a broad diversity by the Early Cretaceous.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Gao et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

【 图 表 】

Figure 6.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

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