flea NEWS 49 Department of Entomology Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011 Locator: <http://www.ent.iastate.edu/FleaNews/ Table of Contents AboutFleaNews.html> or through Coextinction....................................566 either Gopher or anonymous FTP: <gopher.ent.iastate.edu> in the General Interest............................554 "Publications" directory. Electronic Literature Available.....................558 versions are available for No. 46, July, Miscellanea.....................................552 1993; No. 47, December, 1993; No. 48, July, 1994 and this number. Siphonaptera Literature..............559 The opinions and assertions Species Numbers..........................559 contained herein are the private ones of the authors and are not to be con- strued as official or as reflecting the FLEA NEWS is a biannual newsletter views of the Department of Entomol- devoted to matters involving insects ogy, Iowa State University or Sandoz belonging to the order Siphonaptera Animal Health. (fleas) and related subjects. It is com- piled and distributed free of charge by Robert E. Lewis ([email protected]) ******* with the support of the Department of Entomology at Iowa State University, MISCELLANEA Ames, IA, and a grant in aid from Sandoz Animal Health, based is Des First, I wish to express my apprec- Plaines, IL. It is mainly bibliograph-ic iation to all of you who responded to the in nature. Many of the sources are announcement of the the death of abstracting journals and title pages Joanne with your condolences. It was and not all citations have been check- most kind of you and I know that she ed for completeness or accuracy. would have appreciated the thou-ghts Additional information will be pro-vided conveyed in your messages. upon written or e-mail request. Further, recipients are urged to con- ******* tribute items of interest to the profess- ion for inclusion herein. In response to my review of the Lane This newsletter is now avail-able and Crosskey book on Medical Insects in electronic format. The prefer-red and Arachnids (FN 47: 518-519), John method of accessing the electron-ic Lane of the London School of Hygiene version is through the World-Wide Web and Tropical Medicine, University of at the following Universal Resource London wrote to remind me of two DECEMBER 1994 552 1994 other volumes dealing with Medical and Cairo, EGYPT Veterinary Entomology. The first of these is Kettle, D.S., 1984, (reprinted Dr. Thomas Moore with minor changes in 1990 and 1992), Museum of Zoology Medical and veter-inary entomology. University of Michigan C*A*B Internat-ional, Wallingford, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079 Oxon, OX10 8DE, UK. 658 pp, ISBN 0-85198-701-X. The other, now out of Dr. David R. Nash print, is Service, M.W., 1980, A guide to Wohlenstrasse 50a medical ento-mology. The MacMillan CH-3032 Hinterkappelen Press Ltd., London. 226 pp. Both of SWITZERLAND these have evidently been used as texts, in con-junction with James and Mr. Dave Pehling Harwood, 1979, in classes taught at 600 128th Street SE the London School. My apologies for Everrett, WA 98208 the omiss-ion. Dr. Henry W. Robison P.O.Box 1354 SAU ******* Southern Arkansas University Magnolia, AR 71753-5000 The following persons have sent liter- ature since the publication of FN 48: Mr. Manfred Zimmermann A. Azad, J. Beaucournu, D. Cyprich, M. Baltzerstrasse 3 Dryden, A. Dudich, L. Durden, E. CH-3012 Bern Easton, T. Galloway, K. Larsen, A. SWITZERLAND Olsen, R. Pilgrim, J. Segerman, P. Sleeman, P. Smiddy & M. Stanko. Pat Zungoli Thank you very much for your cont- Box 340635, Cherry Farm Insectaries inued cooperation. Clemson University Clemson, SC 29634-0365 ******* ******* A few new names have been added to the subscribers since Flea News 48. The Annual Report of the Danish Pest Their names and addresses follow. Infestation Laboratory (see Bille, N., 1994) lists the following studies on fleas Ms. Elvira Barchet conducted by Alice Olsen and Kim 6644 Clybourn Avenue, #76 Søholt Larsen. North Hollywood, CA 91606 • 10.1 The cat flea Ctenocephalides felis. Four strains, two American Dr. Gordon Gordh and two Danish are in culture. Department of Entomology • 10.1.1 The pattern of emerging of University of Queensland the cat flea. Brisbane, Queensland, AUSTRALIA • 10.2 The squirrel flea Cerato- phyllus [(Monopsyllus)] sciuror-um Prof. Andrew Main sciurorum. Science Department • 10.3 Laboratory and field American University of Cairo evaluation of Dimilin for control of 113 Sharia Kasr el Aini FLEA NEWS 553 1994 fleas on farmed mink. [C. (M.) s. 'wildlife' was expanded to include the sciurorum]. entire anim-al kingdom. (Wild plants • 10.4 The hen flea Ceratophyllus indigenous to the U.S. which are listed [(Ceratophyllus)] gallinae. under CITES [Convention on • 10.5 Insecticidal effect of the plant International Trade in Endangered Cassiope tetragone. Species of Wild Fauna and Flora] or protected under state law are also covered). For ex-ample, collecting an ******* insect, even a mosquito or a cockroach in a National Park or National Wildlife ITEMS OF GENERAL INTEREST Refuge without a permit, and then taking the specimen to another state, The Lacey Act is a viola-tion of the Lacey Act. Note Those of you with access to the many as well that 'wildlife' includes any part electronic bulletin boards to be found on of an organism (blood, DNA, etc.). the INTERNET, and certainly those "Many foreign countries have subscribers to Entomo-l, have requirements for permits to take doubtless noted the heavy traffic con- scientific specimens out of the count- cerning the Lacey Act. Originally ry. The Lacey Act means it is now a enacted to assist in controlling com- U.S. federal crime to fail to comply with merce in endangered species, mainly these permit rules - and ignor-ance is vertebrates, a reinterpretation of this no excuse. A number of Fish and statute by the Fish and Wildlife Serv- Wildlife Service enforcement agents in ice has placed practicing taxonomists the lower 48 [states] have stated that in jeopardy. While the technicalities of the Lacey Act is retro-active in the the Act are beyond the scope of this following sense: if a museum has a newsletter, Kenelm W. Philip of the 100-year old insect specimen that was Institute of Arctic Biology, University originally (for example) taken from a of Alaska, Fairbanks, has crafted an foreign count-ry without the requisite explanation of the problem for the non- permit, that specimen is now in technical audience that is repro-duced violation of the Lacey Act. Most major here with his permission. museums in the country have numerous speci-mens that have "The Bugs and the Bureaucrats suddenly become con-traband. Aside from the dangers involved in field "All this is bad enough - but then trips to remote parts of the world, the the Fish and Wildlife Service got into life of a museum entomol-ogist used to the act by promulgating its own be fairly tame. However, in 1981 all regulations. In order to bring scien-tific that changed. An obscure law called insect specimens into the U.S., or take the Lacey Act was updated - and them out of the U.S., the re-searcher museum entomologists now lead now has to fill out F&WS Form 3-177. complicated, and possibly dan-gerous, This form was originally designed for lives. What does the Lacey Act do? It use by commercial im-porters of makes it a federal crime, punishable by wildlife materials and products. It a $150,000 fine, to im-port, export, or requires the importer /exporter to list take across a state line, any wildlife every species of animal in the which was origin-ally obtained in shipment, and the number of violation of any fore-ign, U.S. federal, individuals of each species. Museum state or Indian tribal law that protects entomologists may return from a field wildlife. In 1981, the definition of FLEA NEWS 554 1994 trip with several thousand specimens, regardless of how many species (or or even tens of thousands of specimens families) were involved. - and many, sometimes most, of these "One of the major ways that the will prob-ably be undetermined. You insect collection at the National Mus- are allowed to bring in undetermined eum of Natural History grows is material - provided that you re-file through donations of private collect- Form 3-177 every 180 days until all ions. The NMNH has announced a new the material has been determined to policy for donations: all speci-mens species! In many groups of insects it must be accompanied by copies of all may take years, or even decades, to relevant collecting permits or by determine to species every specimen in written evidence that no such permits even a small collection, so Form 3-177 were required. The U.S. Department of amounts to a serious paperwork Agriculture is requiring similar burden to any museum whose staff is documentation on all specimens sent to actively working on foreign material. them from foreign countries for Failure to file the form makes you determination. guilty of smuggling. Fortunately most "These laws and regulations are F&WS enforcement agents will make seriously impeding taxonomic and other exceptions to the Form 3-177 work on insects and other 'lower' requirement in cases where the organisms, at the exact time that material cannot be enumerated (as for research on biodiversity is becoming of the millions of organisms present in soil critical importance. The laws passed samples). Travelers who have picked by well-meaning individuals, in a up diseases in foreign parts do not have climate of opinion that has been to inventory their micro-organisms... affected by concern for the "Other consequences of these environment (and possibly by animal- F&WS regulations are: entomologists rights groups) - with absol-utely no are being told that imported/exported understanding of the way insects and specimens may not be sent through other lower organisms differ from the mail, and that all imports and vertebrates.