...Carmi Korine; Boris R. Krasnov; Irina S. Khokhlova; Berry Pinshow SUMMARY We examined feeding performance of the flea Xenopsylla ramesis on three different hosts: its natural, granivorous, rodent host, Sundevall’s jird ( Meriones crassus ); the frugivorous Egyptian fruit bat ( Rousettus aegyptiacus...

...Irina S. Khokhlova; Anna Hovhanyan; Boris R. Krasnov; A. Allan Degen SUMMARY We tested the hypothesis that a negative fitness–density relationship exists in haematophagous ectoparasites. We studied the effect of flea density on the number of blood meals necessary for starting oviposition and egg...

...Michal Sarfati; Boris R. Krasnov; Lusine Ghazaryan; Irina S. Khokhlova; Laura J. Fielden; A. Allan Degen SUMMARY Fleas consume and digest blood from their hosts. We hypothesized that the energy costs of digestion of blood by fleas is dependent on the host species. To test this hypothesis, we...

...Irina S. Khokhlova; Marina Spinu; Boris R. Krasnov; A. Allan Degen SUMMARY We studied immune responses of the jird Meriones crassus to different flea species belonging to the same family. We used jirds maintained in an outdoor enclosure (enclosure; N =18) and parasitized by fleas Xenopsylla...