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?"
Pics or it didn't happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, Why even mention photographs and videos when they aren't available anywhere?
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There are some pictures in the second link in TFS.
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Actually, the images are out there (just search, but here's one: http://www.fleabites.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sand-flea-bites.jpg [fleabites.net]).
The flea infection lesion isn't all that 'orrible. I suppose you have to work one up to a proper rotting lesion (as the department title suggests) to really ruin your appetite.
'ere ya go, mate .. another biscuit with your tea?
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Re:Please remove this article at once. (Score:5, Funny)
On the contrary, it's the ultimate confidence booster. "If this goddamn flea from a big African island can get some ass-equivalent under some fool's crusty feet..."
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Better than referring to it as "making love" as the media seem to like doing at the moment. I think it's so they don't have to use the word sex - probably thinking of the children. The Daily Fail is particularly keen on referring to lions and tigers making love.
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Better than referring to it as "making love" as the media seem to like doing at the moment. I think it's so they don't have to use the word sex - probably thinking of the children. The Daily Fail is particularly keen on referring to lions and tigers making love.
I also view the euphemism "pr0n" as another manifestation of puritanism. I'll see an entire paragraph written using proper spelling, with this sole word written in "1337 5p34k." Being too prudish to spell "porn" properly doesn't strike me as being particularly 'leet.
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Being too prudish to spell "porn" properly doesn't strike me as being particularly 'leet.
But it isn't a prude thing - it's a humor through misspelling thing, similar to the ever popular, 't3h'.
t3h pr0n, i |-|4v t00 |\/|uc|-|!!!!!!!11111111113l3v3|\|
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Also to avoid prudish filters. Something the writer often has no control over.
Re:I have an question (Score:5, Funny)
Oblig. (Score:2)
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You don't support sand flea's right to the consensual sexual activities of its choice in the privacy of its own foot? Fascist.
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Your right to consensual sexual activities ends at my foot.
But, hey, if the entomologist is a consenting adult...
Two months? (Score:5, Funny)
It's amazing that Madagascar didn't close the borders in that time.
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Seriously! And aren't parasites easier to notice as well?
*is likely going to waste the next few hours playing Pandemic 2, thanks to you*
eww (Score:1)
reminds me of an episode of Monster Inside me on Animal planet.
well done to her (Score:2)
debated for decades? (Score:1)
It is a shame that despite the lack of proper editing, there also is a lack of automated spell check.
"As it turns out, her experience may help resolve an question entomologists have debated foor decades: Where, exactly, does the sand flea have sex?"
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.
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"instead I got an unicorn"?
A unicorn sounds right to me, your rule seems right to me, but I can't quite reconcile them. Ah, cognitive dissonance
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y is a consonant (mostly), and the hard U sound is the Y sound. In the other romance languages the Y shares the J sound, absurd, no? jajaja..
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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]
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Show me the money? (Score:1)
The paywall is strong in this one.
Pics or it didn't happen.
I've had them (Score:5, Interesting)
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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.
Botfly (Score:2)
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.
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Never heard those called "Sand Fleas" before, I grew up by the beach in So Cal and they were always called Sand Crabs.
Maybe it's an East Coast thing.
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I have always heard of them as sand fleas. However, it appears that the internet agrees with you. I have tried vain searches for "sand flea" pictures before, but never really found them. It appears that what I was chasing was really an "Emerita talpoida" and not "Talitridae." In fact, not even the same order! Thanks for the info.
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I'm from Massachusetts and we call those things sand fleas as we'll. the ones we have are pretty small though, maybe pinkie nail size.
So... (Score:3)
Is this what we're calling science nowadays??
Following a well-trodden path ... (Score:2)
Well-known evolutionary biologist and website publisher (it's not a bl*g!), Jerry Coyne falls into the latter category, as he relates on his website here [wordpress.com], which includes links to the original broadcast, [blocked by my firewall on this location, so I can't check if they'r