Could this fossilized flea unleash deadly plague?
This flea preserved about 20 million years ago in amber may carry evidence of an ancestral strain of the bubonic plague.
Photo by George Poinar, Jr., courtesy of Oregon State University [CC BY-SA 2.0] The flea in this picture could contain the ancestor to one of the most horrifying diseases known to the human race, the Black Death. Also called the bubonic plague, this disease killed an estimated 50 million people in the 14th century, or 60 per cent of Europe’s entire populat