Researcher Allows Sand Flea To Grow Inside Her Foot To Study It 63
sciencehabit writes "Marlene Thielecke came to Madagascar to study the sand flea, an insect that spends part of its life cycle burrowed into the human foot — but she wound up getting more intimate with the critter than she cared for. Months into her project, Thieleckewas bitten by a flea herself. She decided to make the best of it, by taking regular photographs and videos and keeping track of her observations. 'I thought it might be interesting' to watch what happened, she says. As it turns out, her experience may help resolve an question entomologists have debated foor decades: Where, exactly, does the sand flea have sex?"
Please remove this article at once. (Score:0, Informative)
Any discussion of "sex" is bewildering and frightening to the slashdot audience.
Awful (Score:5, Informative)
OMG, she is much braver than I am. I would be totally grossed out and freaking out. Humans host a huge amount of bacteria, mites, virii, etc.... but there is something especially gross about visible parasites that just make my stomach turn.
This was a tangent link and I really feel sorry for people who have to live through such encounters, especially a multiple infestation:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477893913001695 [sciencedirect.com]
Clarifying the Photo in the Article (Score:5, Informative)
Reading the photo's cation, "The sand flea Tunga penetrans, here in a scanning electron microscope several days after penetrating the skin. The abdominal opening protrudes on the right," I thought it was an image of the flea in situ with it's ass stuck through a chunk of the skin it was excised with.
In fact, that giant doughnut around it's midsection is the part that "over 2 weeks [...] swells up to many times its original size, reaching a diameter of up to 10 mm." It's not even fully distended in the photo. Fully inflated [wikipedia.org], the flea looks like a pearl onion. A fecund pearl onion under your skin [natgeocreative.com] erupting with eggs [healthinplainenglish.com].
When Satan was going through puberty, these were his blackheads.
Just a note to confused people... (Score:5, Informative)
Just a note to confused people... like me.
I used to live in Florida, and would often go catch "sand fleas" at the beach. These are crustaceans that vary from about 1/2" to 1-1/2" long. After a wave washes up on shore, when it recedes you can often see little "v" shapes in the water as it rushes back towards the ocean. Scoop up some sand around that area and you will often find a sand flea. They are perfectly harmless and useful as fish bait.
These are NOT the same sand fleas as what this article discusses. According to Wikipedia, what I was catching for my kids to play with was a "Talitridae." This nasty bug in the article is a "Chigoe flea." Both can be called by the same name, but are completely different animals.
Re:debated for decades? (Score:4, Informative)
I see it so often that it usually just irks me a little, but I think it's time to share...
You use the word "an" instead of "a" when it precedes a word with a vowel *sound* at the beginning (not necessarily a vowel letter, though).
I would like an apple.
You would like a banana.
I have a question.
You have an answer.
It will only take a minute.
It ended up taking an hour.
Please send me a PDF file.
She sent me an EPS file.
I wanted an emu, but instead I got a unicorn.