The thylacine, also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. They had almost died out out on the Australian mainland from around 2,000 years ago, most likely because of the introduction of dingoes or due to climate change. Prior to European settlement around 5,000 remained in the wild on Tasmania. Beginning in the nineteenth century they were perceived as a threat to the livestock of farmers and bounty hunting was introduced. The last known of its species died in 1936 at Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. The thylacine is widespread in popular culture and is a cultural icon in Australia.
The Tasmanian devil is a carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae. Until recently, it was only found on the island state of Tasmania, but it has been reintroduced to New South Wales in mainland Australia, with a small breeding population. The size of a small dog, the Tasmanian devil became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world following the extinction of the thylacine in 1936. It is related to quolls, and distantly related to the thylacine. It is characterised by its stocky and muscular build, black fur, pungent odour, extremely loud and disturbing screech, keen sense of smell, and ferocity when feeding. The Tasmanian devil's large head and neck allow it to generate among the strongest bites per unit body mass of any extant predatory land mammal. It hunts prey and scavenges on carrion.
Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of 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 hosts' fur or feathers. They lack wings; their hind legs are extremely well adapted for jumping. Their claws keep them from being dislodged, and their mouthparts are adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood. They can leap 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 hosts' skin.
Lomatia tasmanica, commonly known as King's lomatia, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae native to Tasmania. Growing up to 8 metres (26 ft) tall, the plant has shiny green pinnate (lobed) leaves and bears red flowers in the summer, but yields neither fruit nor seeds. King's lomatia is unusual because all of the remaining plants are genetically identical clones. Because it has three sets of chromosomes and is therefore sterile, reproduction occurs only vegetatively: when a branch falls, that branch grows new roots, establishing a new plant that is genetically identical to its parent.
Mecoptera is an order of insects in the superorder Endopterygota with about six hundred species in nine families worldwide. Mecopterans are sometimes called scorpionflies after their largest family, Panorpidae, in which the males have enlarged genitals raised over the body that look similar to the stingers of scorpions, and long beaklike rostra. The Bittacidae, or hangingflies, are another prominent family and are known for their elaborate mating rituals, in which females choose mates based on the quality of gift prey offered to them by the males. A smaller group is the snow scorpionflies, family Boreidae, adults of which are sometimes seen walking on snowfields. In contrast, the majority of species in the order inhabit moist environments in tropical locations.
The echidna flea is the larger of two species of flea commonly found on the short-beaked echidna. It is monotypic, that is, the only species in the genus. This flea reaches 4 millimetres in length and has been claimed to be the world's largest flea. This statement is in error as the world's largest flea is known to be the mountain beaver flea which can be as large as 12 millimetres in length.
Boreidae, commonly called snow scorpionflies, or in the British Isles, snow fleas are a very small family of scorpionflies, containing only around 30 species, all of which are boreal or high-altitude species in the Northern Hemisphere.
"Siphonaptera" is a name used to refer to the following rhyme by Augustus De Morgan :
Dianella tasmanica, commonly known as the Tasman flax-lily or Tasmanian flax-lily is a herbaceous strappy perennial herb of the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Hemerocallidoideae, found in southeastern Australia including Tasmania. It has leaves to 80 cm, and a flower stem to 1.5 m. Blue flowers in spring and summer are followed by violet berries. It adapts readily to cultivation and is commonly seen in Australian gardens. Unlike other Dianella species, its fruit is toxic.
The human flea – once also called the house flea – is a cosmopolitan flea species that has, in spite of the common name, a wide host spectrum. It is one of six species in the genus Pulex; the other five are all confined to the Nearctic and Neotropical realms. The species is thought to have originated in South America, where its original host may have been the guinea pig or peccary.
Asperdaphne tasmanica is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Raphitomidae.
The Tasmanian darner,, is a species of large dragonfly in the family Telephlebiidae, which includes some of the world's largest dragonflies. It is found in Tasmania, Australia. The species was first described by Robert Tillyard in 1916 and inhabits streams and rivers.
Ceratophyllus gallinae, known as the hen flea in Europe or the European chicken flea elsewhere, is an ectoparasite of birds. This flea was first described by the German botanist and entomologist Franz von Paula Schrank in 1803.
The Pulicidae are a flea family in the order Siphonaptera. Currently, this family has 181 species in 27 genera. Of these, 16 are known from North America.
Panorpida or Mecopterida is a proposed superorder of Endopterygota. The conjectured monophyly of the Panorpida is historically based on morphological evidence, namely the reduction or loss of the ovipositor and several internal characteristics, including a muscle connecting a pleuron and the first axillary sclerite at the base of the wing, various features of the larval maxilla and labium, and basal fusion of CuP and A1 veins in the hind wings. The monophyly of the Panorpida is supported by recent molecular data.
Hystrichopsylla schefferi, also known as the mountain beaver flea and giant mountain beaver flea, is a parasitic nearctic insect belonging to the order Siphonaptera, the fleas. With an adult body length of as much as 0.5 inches (13 mm), it is the largest living flea in the world, and is native to the American Northwest. Though most members of the genus Hystrichopsylla are not strongly associated with any particular host animal and will parasitize insectivores and rodents generally, H. schefferi is monoxenously associated with the mountain beaver with which its range is coterminous. The fleas of the family Hystrichopsyllidae, along with the family Pulicidae, are the oldest of fleas in evolutionary history. H. schefferi can be distinguished from the very similar and closely related species Hystrichopsylla gigas dippiei by the number of spines in the pronotal comb, as H. g. dippiei has 36 and H. schefferi has 46.
Stephanocircus domrowi, the goblin flea, is a critically endangered insect endemic to the Australian state of Victoria. It is host specific, and lives only with the co-endangered Leadbeater's possum. Although it has been suggested as a good candidate species for conservation, there is presently no work directed towards its conservation. The key threat factor driving the decline of the Leadbeater's possum, and by extension the co-endangered goblin flea, is logging in the mountain ash forests of the Victorian central highlands. To avoid extinction, a number of conservation steps will need to be taken including amalgamating the goblin flea into the captive breeding program for its host at Healesville Sanctuary.
Bossiaea tasmanica is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to Tasmania. It is a prostrate or low-lying shrub with spiny branches, elliptic to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, and yellow and red to pink flowers.
Anne-Maree Pearse is an Australian cytogeneticist who is credited with the theory that some cancer cells can be transmissible between individuals. This is known as the Allograft Theory. Her work has focussed on devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), a contagious cancer that affects Tasmanian devils. For this she has won multiple awards, including the 2012 Prince Hitachi Prize for Comparative Oncology.
Hectopsylla is a genus of fleas in the family Hectopsyllidae that parasitize non-volant mammals, birds, and bats. The genus comprises thirteen species, six of which were described in whole or part by Karl Jordan between 1906–1942. Two of the species in Hectopsylla, H. psittaci and H. pulex, go under common names, with H. psittaci identified as the sticktight flea and H. pulex identified as the chiggerflea. Hastritter and Méndez (2000) consider the genus Rhynchopsyllus a junior system of the genus.
