Royal Institution Christmas Lectures - Size Matters

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures have been filmed earlier this month and will be shown on BBC Four on 28, 29 and 30 December at 8pm. Dr Mark Miodownik, a materials scientist from King's College London, will
explore the extraordinary world of size and scale.

There are ants mentioned in the description for the first show and I'm really hoping that there will be fleas too. If not I'll publish my own findings on why a human sized flea would not be able to jump over St Pauls in the New Year.

<< STOP PRESS >>

It has been confirmed that there is a good flea demonstration in the lecture by Tim Cockerill. Fleas generously provided by the hedgehogs at Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital



<< STOP PRESS >>

A flea in her ear - La Puce à l'oreille

The Old Vic is showing a new play called "A flea in her ear". I say new but it was actually written in 1907 by Georges Feydeau. The play is a translation of a French Farce and from what the reviews are saying it's worth going if that's your cup of tea.

What interested me was the phrase, "a flea in her ear", according to one user on WordReference it's an old idiom going back to at least the mid-fifteenth century. Yahoo answers suggests, the real meaning of "mettre la puce à l'oreille" is "to arouse someone's suspicion", "plant the seeds of doubt", which sounds about right. There are suggestions in the press that the phrase is connected to "bee in her bonnet" which I have to disagree with although the free dictionary does suggest an alternative use of that phrase which is consistent with "A flea in her ear".

Pulgas Vestidas for sale

Your chance to own some dressed fleas. These tiny figures are made with a flea as the head. This particular pair have a wedding theme and are dressed as a bride and groom and are just 1/8 inch tall. The box contain the couple is just 1/4 inch tall and is mounted in a frame with a velvet surround along with a 1cent coin to show the scale.



If you are not rich enough to purchase your own fleas then there are some exhibits around the globe that also have these historical creations on show.

Flea Suppliers

One of the questions I get asked a lot is where can you buy live fleas. Unfortunately I've not found any such suppliers here in the UK and the general recommendation is to talk to a vet and get some cat fleas.

However I've just found out that Blades Biological can sell you a preserved dog flea.



Blades also do prepared flea slides and sets of preserved specimens.

Fisher Scientific also do slides with fleas.

Conditioning of insects

A recent edit to the wikipedia article on flea circus suggested that fleas can't be trained or conditioned because they have no brain. It also suggested that some fleas are more inclinded to jump and others to walk so it's a case of selection rather than conditioning. This of course contradicts the long running parable of fleas in a jar being conditioned not to jump and once the lid is taken off then the fleas still jump no higher than before the lid was removed.

Firstly to address the question of does a flea have a brain, Richard Fox comments, "The nervous system consists of a dorsal, anterior brain of two or three pairs of ganglia, circumenteric connectives, and a paired ventral nerve cord with segmental ganglia and segmental peripheral nerves.". A bit of explaination of what that means can be found in this article on Brain Evolution which sees a link between the number of sensory organs and brain power.

With regards to the use of those senses and how they affect the behaviour of fleas aspect there has also been some research done, by Michael Dryden aka "Dr Flea".

"Contrast of a moving dark cylinder against a light backdrop was visually attractive to the fleas. No visual orientation was demonstrated under red light. Increasing the complexity of patterns on the target did not increase its attractiveness. Orientation and attraction to a stationary heated target was demonstrated, but required the additional stimulation of air movements to evoke a directed jump. Light, CO2, and air currents stimulated locomotion."

Osbrink, W.L.A. and Rust, M.K., 1985. Cat flea (Siphonaptera: Pulicidae): factors influencing host finding behavior in the laboratory. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am., 78:29 34.

Walt Noon the magician, inventor and flea circus performer has also reports seeing this behavior.

Apart from the flea circuses there has not been much research into the actual conditioning of fleas how there has been some for other creatures.

Insect Conditioning
http://bjoern.brembs.net/news.php?item.441.3

Conditioning of moths
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n10/abs/nn.2192.html

Pavlov's Cockroach
Classical Conditioning of Salivation in an Insect
Hidehiro Watanabe, Makoto Mizunami*
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0000529#n101

So I'm not sure if there is a strong argument for nature vs nurture with fleas. I'd advise anyone hoping to have performing fleas would be advised to tap into the flea's behaviour of responding to heat, light, CO² and air movements.

And finally, some slightly more questionable research into do fleas have higher level emotions.

The Insect Circus at Jacksons Lane Theatre, Highgate

The Insect Circus is returning to London. The next performance of the Insect Circus is at Jacksons Lane Theatre, Highgate, London. There will be 10 shows over 5 days in late October. Tickets available from Jackson's Lane box office on 020 8341 4421.

269a Archway Road, Highgate,
London N6 5AA
27 October 2010
12:00-14:00

Delights to behold will include Dungo (son of Dungo) the balancing Scarab Beetle, Tallulah the Worm Charmer, The Heroic Courage family and their Vicious Vespa Wasps, and the Acrobatic Ants. I have previously enquired and unfortunately the Insect Circus has no performing fleas.


www.insectcircus.co.uk

Fleas on Etsy

I've found a few flea items on Etsy, here's the best of this week's selections



Flea Pin
Flea Greeting Card



Flea Cushion
Dot's Flea Circus Limited Edition print
Better than a flea circus origional print
Dark Alphabet - B is for Bonfire
Flea Circus Collage