CANADA: A 20-million-year-old flea entombed in amber with tiny bacteria attached to it provides what researchers believe may be the oldest evidence on Earth of a dreaded killer – an ancient strain of the bubonic plague.
If the fossil bacteria are related to plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, the discovery would show that this scourge, which killed more than half the population of Europe in the 14th century, actually had been around for millions of years before that, travelled around much of the world, and predates the human race, researchers said.
It can’t be determined with certainty that these bacteria, which were attached to the flea’s proboscis in a dried droplet and compacted in its rectum, are related to Yersinia pestis, scientists said.
But their size, shape and characteristics are consistent with modern forms of those bacteria. They are a coccobacillus bacteria; they are seen in both rod and nearly spherical shapes; and are similar to those of Yersinia pestis.
Of the pathogenic bacteria transmitted by fleas today, only Yersinia has such shapes.
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