Scientists say giant fleas feasted on dinosaur blood - Polidicks

[release][img]http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/120229-science-flea.grid-6x2.jpg[/img] A female and a male flea (left and right, respectively) from the Jurassic era were preserved in a fossil bed in northeastern China. WASHINGTON — In the Jurassic era, even the flea was a beast, compared to its minuscule modern descendants. These pesky bloodsuckers were nearly an inch long. New fossils found in China are evidence of the oldest fleas — from 125 million to 165 million years ago, said Diying Huang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology. Their disproportionately long proboscis, or strawlike mouth, had sharp weaponlike serrated edges that helped them bite and feed from their super-sized hosts, he and other researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Nature. Scientists figure about eight or more of today's fleas would fit on the burly back of their ancient ancestor. "That's a beast," said study co-author Michael Engel, entomology curator at the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas. "It was a big critter. I can't even imagine coming home and finding my miniature schnauzer with one or more of these things crawling around on it." The ancient female fleas were close to twice the size of the males, researchers found, which fits with modern fleas. Engel said it is not just the size, however, that was impressive about the nine flea fossils. It was also their fearsome beak, capable of sticking into and sucking blood from the hides of certain dinosaurs, probably those that had feathers. These flea beaks "had almost like a saw running down the side," Engel said. "This thing was packing a weapon. They were equipped to dig into something." No jumping in the Jurassic While the ancient fleas were big, they had one disadvantage compared to modern ones: Their legs were not well developed. Evolving over time, fleas went from crawling to jumping, Huang said. "Luckily for the land animals of the Mesozoic, these big flat fleas lacked the tremendous jumping capacity that our common fleas have," said Joe Hannibal of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He was not involved in the study, but he praised it as useful and interesting. Just finding the fleas was a stroke of luck, Huang said. He first found one in a Chinese fossil market and mentioned it to someone at his hotel. The other guest showed him a photo of another fossilized flea, telling him it was from Daohugou in northeastern China, where there is a famous fossil bed from about 165 million years ago. Huang went there and found fleas preserved in a brownish film of volcanic ash. The grains of rock were so fine you could see antennae and other details of the fleas, he said. Modern fleas get engorged after they feast on blood, but these did not seem engorged, Engel said. It should not seem very surprising that large fleas existed more than 100 million years ago. If you go back even farther in time, ancestors of dragonflies and damsel flies had 3-foot-long (1 meter-long) wingspans, Engel said.[/release] [url]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46575252/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T1AhF_E_8TD[/url] Thank god they're extinct.

Those. Look. Terrifying.

I would hate to deal with this shit in my house.

That's gross tbh

Just imagine of one of those jumped onto you. and then a T-rex fucking ate you.

[QUOTE=teslacoil;34951930]Just imagine of one of those jumped onto you. and then a T-rex fucking ate you.[/QUOTE] jokes on him i just gave him fleas

[QUOTE=JustGman;34951955]jokes on him i just gave him fleas[/QUOTE] But what if the flea jumped from the T-rex onto you.

i got an idea! take the dinosaur blood from the fleas and get its dna to revive the dinosaurs! of course, the dna might be a bit damaged so we'll cover the holes with frog dna. what do you guys think? [editline]1st March 2012[/editline] you know what, let's make a sort of zoo! let's call it... hmmm... cretaceous park!

Oh god! Not the fleas! AAAAAAAAAAAAAGHGGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[QUOTE=Medevilae;34952224]What's the scale on that picture?[/QUOTE] The link says nearly an inch. o.e

Dragonflies with 3 foot wingspans? Why the fuck would they shrink down, what a bunch of pussies.

[QUOTE=Medevilae;34952224]What's the scale on that picture?[/QUOTE] The middle bone of your index finger is about an inch.

[img]http://images.wikia.com/cloverfield/images/b/b0/Cloverfieldparasite.jpg[/img]

Now, are they sure it wasn't a giant floating eye that killed the dinosaurs?

[QUOTE=alexguydude;34952439]Dragonflies with 3 foot wingspans? Why the fuck would they shrink down, what a bunch of pussies.[/QUOTE] Bug respiratory tracts put an ultimate cap on their size. The oxygen levels in our current atmosphere are far too low for bugs that big, they'd literally suffocate, but back then there was much more oxygen in the air.

What fucked up evolution is this? Was this the reason why god send a meteor to wipe out all these giant monstrosities?

[QUOTE=ExplodingGuy;34952524]Now, are they sure it wasn't a giant floating eye that killed the dinosaurs?[/QUOTE] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-pGGWTI9dE[/media]

[QUOTE=teslacoil;34951973]But what if the flea jumped from the T-rex onto you.[/QUOTE] I'd rather deal with the T-rex fuck that

I am so glad insects today are only mildly horrifying, not suicidal levels of terrifying like they were back in the day.

I see an advantage to this, they are so big, they will be easy to see and kill

[QUOTE=download;35003745]I see an advantage to this, they are so big, they will be easy to see and kill[/QUOTE] Easy to find. Not easy to kill. [video=youtube;DTWYQhTT388]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTWYQhTT388[/video]

[QUOTE=mac338;35003766]Easy to find. Not easy to kill. [video=youtube;DTWYQhTT388]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTWYQhTT388[/video][/QUOTE] That would be scary as all hell.

[img]http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01592/flea_1592351i.jpg[/img] times 1000

Don't worry guys. They probably performed in musicals at the time. [img]http://www.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/600full-a-monster-in-paris-poster.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=mac338;35003766]Easy to find. Not easy to kill. [video=youtube;DTWYQhTT388]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTWYQhTT388[/video][/QUOTE] Awesome movie. I have the "World of Kong" book where they have all the concept art for the creatures and go into detail as to the ecosystem and animals and all that shit. It's pretty awesome.

we all know what's the next logical step [img]http://images.wikia.com/jurassicpark/images/f/f8/JP-JohnHammond.jpg[/img]

brb buying my own island to make a dinosaur zoo.

Good God...