A
20-million-year-old flea, preserved in amber, is potentially
holding an ancestral strain of the Black Death, one of the worlds
deadliest pandemics in human history. The infamous plague claimed
the lives of 75-200 million people before peaking in Europe during
the mid-14th century.
According to researchers in a new study, now published in the
Journal of Medical Entomology, the bacteria is believed to be an
ancient strain of
Yersinia
pestis, a bacillus that was carried by fleas on rats. The
bacteria were discovered on the proboscis of the old flea, as well
as in the fleas rectum.
"Aside from physical characteristics of the fossil bacteria
that are similar to
plaguebacteria,
their location in the rectum of the flea is known to occur in
modern plague bacteria," said George Poinar, one of the
researchers, in a news release. "And in this fossil, the presence
of similar bacteria in a dried droplet on the proboscis of the flea
is consistent with the method of transmission of plague bacteria by
modern fleas."
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Although
scientists are not 100 percent certain of the relationship between
the bacteria and Yersinia pestis, a close examination of the find
suggests that they are indeed related. The bacteria on the flea has
features that match the modern forms of the
bubonic
plaguebacteria, which can be characterized by their
unique
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