A new transitional fossil flea species found just this year:
"Here we report a new transitional flea, Saurophthirus exquisitus sp. nov., assigned to a new family Saurophthiridae fam. nov., from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of northeastern China. Saurophthirids are more similar to crown fleas than other stem fleas in having a relatively small body size, relatively short and slender piercing-sucking stylet mouthparts, comparably short and compact antennae, rows of short and stiff bristles on the thorax, and highly elongated legs. The new finding greatly improves our understanding of the morphological transition to the highly specialized body plan of extant fleas."
New transitional fleas from China highlighting diversity of Early Cretaceous ectoparasitic insects.
Gao T, Shih C, Rasnitsyn AP, Xu X, Wang S, Ren D.
Curr Biol. 2013 Jul 8;23(13):1261-6.
New transitional fleas from China highlighting div... [Curr Biol. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI
"Here we report a new transitional flea, Saurophthirus exquisitus sp. nov., assigned to a new family Saurophthiridae fam. nov., from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of northeastern China. Saurophthirids are more similar to crown fleas than other stem fleas in having a relatively small body size, relatively short and slender piercing-sucking stylet mouthparts, comparably short and compact antennae, rows of short and stiff bristles on the thorax, and highly elongated legs. The new finding greatly improves our understanding of the morphological transition to the highly specialized body plan of extant fleas."
New transitional fleas from China highlighting diversity of Early Cretaceous ectoparasitic insects.
Gao T, Shih C, Rasnitsyn AP, Xu X, Wang S, Ren D.
Curr Biol. 2013 Jul 8;23(13):1261-6.
New transitional fleas from China highlighting div... [Curr Biol. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI
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