Public Domain Images: Flea

Detailed likeness of a flea from Robert Hooke’s 1665 work, Micrographia.

This is a public domain image of an insect, specifically thought to be a flea. The cross-section appearance gives the subject an air of seeming suspended, almost like it was part of an insect collection. The drawing comes from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia: or, Some physiological descriptions of the minute bodies made by magnifying glasses. The work was published in 1665 and discusses Hooke’s advances in microscopes and telescopes and how they aid in studying specimens. Hooke was the first person to use the term “cell” to refer to the matter that comprises organisms, thinking they resembled monk’s cells.

This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Image is 374.9 KB, 1535×1200 px, and is hosted by the National Institute of Health

Public Domain Images: Flea

User Descriptions

  1. jennifer
    03.20.10

    This creature looks like a cross of a cricket and a bee. It has crooked legs like a cricket and a big bloated round body.

  2. Renuka
    03.23.10

    THE FLEA:
    The flea is the common name for insects and most of them does not have wings.In the picture we can see the minute physiological structures. The morphology is clearly viewed and it is the cross section of the flea.We can see such description on the structure only thorough the microscope and Robert Hook has made a complete and descriptive sketch of the flea and also helped for the future to analysis more for it.If we see the mouth part it is adapted for the sucking behaviour for the insect. Most of the fleas are blood sucking, like the parasites which mostly live on the blood of the mammal.The bodies of the fleas are laterally compressed so that they can move the wings is more easy and can escape easily.The fleas lays tiny oval shaped white eggs which is called larvae and they do not have eyesight and they feed on the inorganic particles and even the stool of the adult. But the adult flea has a good eye sight so that only it could see the prey easily while flying. We can see the many layers in the body of the flea and the eyes are not separate and it is merged with the eye region.This sketch of Robert Hook is really brilliant, even we can see the minute layers over the body and in the limbs.It has 2 fore limbs attached from the mouth , 2 middle limbs and 2 hind limbs.This structure is best to describe a flea.

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