by neufer » Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:07 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonaptera_(poem) wrote:
<<Jonathan Swift's long satirical poem "On Poetry: A Rapsody" (1733):
- The Vermin only teaze and pinch
Their Foes superior by an Inch.
So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea
Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller yet to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum:
Thus ev'ry Poet, in his Kind
Is bit by him that comes behind[.]
"Siphonaptera" refers to this short rhyming summary
by Augustus De Morgan's _A Budget of Paradoxes_ (1872):
- Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
De Morgan included the rhyme in a discussion of the possibility that all particles may be made up of clusters of smaller particles, 'and so down, for ever'; and similarly that planets and stars may be particles of some larger universe, 'and so up, for ever'.
Lewis F. Richardson adapted the poem to meteorology in 1922:
- Big whirls have little whirls
That feed on their velocity,
And little whirls have lesser whirls
And so on to viscosity ...>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flea wrote:
<<Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that survive as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by consuming blood, or hematophagy, from their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about 3 millimetres long, are usually brown, and have bodies that are "flattened" sideways or narrow, enabling them to move through their host's fur or feathers. They lack wings, but have strong claws preventing them from being dislodged, mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood, and hind legs extremely well adapted for jumping. They are able to leap a distance of some 50 times their body length, a feat second only to jumps made by another group of insects, the superfamily of froghoppers. Flea larvae are worm-like with no limbs; they have chewing mouthparts and feed on organic debris left on their host's skin.
The Siphonaptera are most closely related to the snow scorpionflies (typically 6 mm or less) in the family Boreidae, placing them within the Endopterygote insect order Mecoptera. Fleas arose in the early Cretaceous, most likely as ectoparasites of mammals, before moving on to other groups, including birds. Each species of flea is more or less a specialist with respect to its host animal species: many species never breed on any other host, though some are less selective. Some families of fleas are exclusive to a single host group; for example, the Malacopsyllidae are found only on armadillos, the Ischnopsyllidae only on bats, and the Chimaeropsyllidae only on elephant shrews.
The oriental rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, is a vector of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium which causes bubonic plague. The disease was spread to humans by rodents such as the black rat, which were bitten by infected fleas. Major outbreaks included the Plague of Justinian, c. 540 and the Black Death, c. 1350, both of which killed a sizeable fraction of the world's population.>>
[quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonaptera_(poem)]
<<Jonathan Swift's long satirical poem "On Poetry: A Rapsody" (1733):
[list][b][i][color=#0000FF]The Vermin only teaze and pinch
Their Foes superior by an Inch.
So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea
Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller yet to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum:
Thus ev'ry Poet, in his Kind
Is bit by him that comes behind[.][/color][/i][/b][/list]
"Siphonaptera" refers to this short rhyming summary
by Augustus De Morgan's _A Budget of Paradoxes_ (1872):
[list][b][i][color=#0000FF]Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.[/color][/i][/b][/list]
De Morgan included the rhyme in a discussion of the possibility that all particles may be made up of clusters of smaller particles, 'and so down, for ever'; and similarly that planets and stars may be particles of some larger universe, 'and so up, for ever'.
Lewis F. Richardson adapted the poem to meteorology in 1922:
[list][b][i][color=#0000FF]Big whirls have little whirls
That feed on their velocity,
And little whirls have lesser whirls
And so on to viscosity ...[/color][/i][/b]>>[/list][/quote][quote=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flea]
[float=right][img3=flea relative: snow scorpionfly feeding on moss.]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Boreus_hyemalis_female.jpg/330px-Boreus_hyemalis_female.jpg[/img3][img3=flea]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Flea_Scanning_Electron_Micrograph_False_Color.jpg/330px-Flea_Scanning_Electron_Micrograph_False_Color.jpg[/img3][/float]
<<Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that survive as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by consuming blood, or hematophagy, from their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about 3 millimetres long, are usually brown, and have bodies that are "flattened" sideways or narrow, enabling them to move through their host's fur or feathers. They lack wings, but have strong claws preventing them from being dislodged, mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood, and hind legs extremely well adapted for jumping. They are able to leap a distance of some 50 times their body length, a feat second only to jumps made by another group of insects, the superfamily of froghoppers. Flea larvae are worm-like with no limbs; they have chewing mouthparts and feed on organic debris left on their host's skin.
The Siphonaptera are most closely related to the snow scorpionflies (typically 6 mm or less) in the family Boreidae, placing them within the Endopterygote insect order Mecoptera. Fleas arose in the early Cretaceous, most likely as ectoparasites of mammals, before moving on to other groups, including birds. Each species of flea is more or less a specialist with respect to its host animal species: many species never breed on any other host, though some are less selective. Some families of fleas are exclusive to a single host group; for example, the Malacopsyllidae are found only on armadillos, the Ischnopsyllidae only on bats, and the Chimaeropsyllidae only on elephant shrews.
The oriental rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, is a vector of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium which causes bubonic plague. The disease was spread to humans by rodents such as the black rat, which were bitten by infected fleas. Major outbreaks included the Plague of Justinian, c. 540 and the Black Death, c. 1350, both of which killed a sizeable fraction of the world's population.>>[/quote]