Ticks, Fleas, Lice, Mites, and Botflies

Lice and vampire moths have an evidenced harmless prior diet, and face mites and feather mites are mostly harmless now. Fleas and ticks have only proposals. The tick's saliva, with protein families found nowhere else, and the botfly, whose every species is an obligate parasite, are where the young-earth answer is weakest.

By AI (Claude Fable 5.1, reasoning effort unavailable) Draft:  September 2026

"We postulate that fleas, ticks, mites, and lice may have started to be “hitchhikers” as phoretic associations." — Alan Gillen and Frank Sherwin, Answers in Genesis, 20151

"In this particular analysis, no distinctly herbivorous ancestors were found." — Jeremy Blaschke, Creation Biology Society, 20182

Summary

Young-earth writers say that ticks, fleas, lice and mites were made harmless and turned to blood after the Fall.  The claim can be tested group by group, by asking what each animal's nearest relatives eat and whether any living member shows the change.  The groups do not come out the same.

  • The young-earth position, in its own words. Alan Gillen and Frank Sherwin of Answers in Genesis propose that fleas, ticks, mites and lice began as hitchhikers that rode on animals without feeding on them. They suggest fleas pierced plants, and Gillen and Matthew Eakin suggest ticks were decomposers that took what they needed from plant haemoglobin. Creation Ministries International and the Institute for Creation Research point to the vampire moth as a fruit-piercer that turned to blood. No young-earth source found says anything about botflies.3415
  • Secular biology agrees that parasitism came second. Sara Weinstein and Armand Kuris count at least 223 separate origins of parasitism in animals. Blood-feeding in arthropods arose "at least six times" on the older count and "more than 20" on Ben Mans's 2011 count. Michael Lehane's standard textbook describes the first route to blood as a nest-dwelling insect that ate debris, then rode in fur, then ate skin. That is the hitchhiker proposal without the timescale.6678
  • Two groups have an evidenced harmless prior diet. Free-living book lice eat fungal spores, turn up in fur and nests, and are the sister group of every parasitic louse. Vampire moths all pierce fruit, and the males of 10 of the 18 species also take blood with the same proboscis.91011
  • Two groups have only a proposal. For fleas, a plant-feeding ancestor is inferred from a sister family whose own adult diet "remains unknown." For ticks, every living species, the deepest branch of the family tree and the oldest fossils are all blood-feeders. The plant-haemoglobin idea is contradicted by measurement: mites that do not feed on blood keep the full pathway for making heme and need none from food.121314
  • Two cases have no answer. Tick saliva carries over a thousand secreted proteins, including families "found exclusively in ticks" that bind the immune signals of vertebrates. All of the roughly 170 botfly species are obligate parasites of mammals, and the adults cannot feed.15151616
  • The mites almost nobody notices are mostly harmless. Face mites were found on all 19 adults tested by DNA and have the fewest genes of any arthropod sequenced so far. Feather mites eat fungi and bacteria, not feathers, skin or blood.171819
  • Verdict. The claim that these animals had a harmless prior diet is well supported for lice and moths, plausible for fleas, and unsupported for ticks and botflies. The design answer is weakest at the tick's saliva. A harmless-origin model has to say what those proteins were for before there was a bite, and no young-earth writer has.

Part 1: What young-earth writers propose

Six statements set out the position.  They do not all say the same thing.

Hitchhikers.  Gillen and Sherwin wrote in 2015 that "parasitism is a secondary state in nature."1  They hold that fleas are a separately created kind and reject descent from scorpionflies.1  Their proposed first diet is plants:  fleas "were most likely created as plant eaters to help with the recycling of leafy organic matter and detritus as flea larvae do today," and the proboscis pierced "probably plants in pre-Fall era."11  The jumping legs and combs served for riding on animals to new habitats.

Decomposers.  Gillen and Eakin wrote in 2021 that ticks were "most likely" decomposers of dead plant matter, and that after the curse "they lost their ability to extract necessary materials from plant hemoglobin and started depending upon animal blood."5  Their evidence is an analogy with free-living mites, which they grant may belong to different created kinds, and a claim about male ticks examined in Part 3.5  They borrow two causes from Joseph Francis's 2008 account of microbes, genetic alteration and displacement.  Francis wrote about microbes and said nothing of arthropods.20

Adjusted design.  Sherwin, who is on the staff of the Institute for Creation Research, gave two options in 2013:  "God may have adjusted the original design of these creatures at the time of the Curse, allowing them to feed off other creatures.  Or perhaps female mosquitoes lived off high-protein plant extracts before the Fall, using their mouthparts to penetrate into the plant tissues."  He added that creation zoologists "do not yet have all the answers."2121

Changed gene expression.  Warren Shipton, in the Journal of Creation in 2019, argued that "blood-sucking insects originally fed on nectar, honeydew, and perhaps other insects."  He names fleas, ticks and mites in his list of blood-suckers and then treats only black flies and mosquitoes.2222

A timetable.  Matthew Ingle wrote in Answers magazine in 2021 that many insect groups turned to blood before the Flood, and that blood-feeding moths, kissing bugs and vampire bats did so "several hundred years after the flood."23

A test.  Jeremy Blaschke of Union University is the one young-earth author found who tested the model against data.  He stated the claim plainly:  young-earth creationism implies "that all species of parasites have evolved from non-parasitic ancestors in less than 6,000 years."2  He sampled 100 of Weinstein and Kuris's parasite lineages.  More than half held fewer than 10 species, which he judged compatible with a recent origin.  But the ancestors were not plant-eaters.  They were "predaceous (83%), while the rest were saprophagous (7%), fungivorous (6%), or had unknown ancestral states (4%)."22  He asked for "a deeper discussion about biological death before the fall."2

So the question for each group is what it ate first, and whether that diet was harmless on the model's own terms.  Shipton allows insect-eating before the Fall.  Sherwin holds that "all animals were vegetarian," and Ingle that blood-feeding "replaced plant eating."2123

Part 2: The mites almost nobody notices

Two mites live on nearly every adult human face.  Demodex folliculorum sits in hair follicles and Demodex brevis in the oil glands beside them.

How common.  Megan Thoemmes and colleagues scraped faces in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 2014.  Looking for whole mites, they found them on 14% of 253 adults.  Testing the same kind of sample for mite DNA, they found it on all 19 adults tested and on 7 of 10 eighteen-year-olds.1717  The claim that every adult carries them rests on those 19 people, backed by older studies of cadavers.  The 2022 genome paper puts prevalence at "likely above 90%."19

What they do.  Gilbert Smith and colleagues sequenced D. folliculorum in 2022.  It has 9,707 protein-coding genes, "the smallest number of protein-coding genes yet identified among panarthropods."  Each leg segment is worked by a single muscle cell.  The mite has lost DNA repair genes.  It is "completely harmless" in most people.  The paper also corrected a story repeated for years, that the mite has no anus and bursts when it dies.  It has one.191919

Which way it is going.  Smith's team reads the mite as "a transitional stage from a host-injuring obligate parasite to an obligate symbiont."19  That is the reverse of the young-earth direction.  Elizabeth Mitchell of Answers in Genesis wrote in 2014 that the first mites "must have been harmless."24  Both readings fit what is seen today, a mite that does no harm.  The gene loss fits the young-earth expectation of decay in a dependent animal, but it came with dependence.  It did not make the mite a parasite.

Feather mites.  Jorge Doña and colleagues examined the gut contents of 1,300 feather mites under the microscope and 1,833 more by DNA sequencing.  Fungal spores and threads were the commonest food, then bacteria.  They "did not find any evidence of feather mites feeding upon bird resources (e.g., blood, skin) other than potentially uropygial gland oil," the oil a bird spreads when it preens.  They call the mites "likely fungivore–microbivore–detritivore symbionts of bird feathers."181818  The study covers the mites that live on the feather vanes.  It does not cover quill mites or the blood-feeding mites of poultry.

Mites switch both ways.  Weinstein and Kuris found that most origins of parasitism in arthropods are in mites and flies, groups where "predation, saprophagy, necrophagy and facultative parasitism" occur "within the same genus."8  Pavel Klimov and Barry OConnor reported in 2013 that house dust mites, which live free, "evolved from permanent parasites of warm-blooded vertebrates."25  The scabies mite is the harmful case.  It burrows in the skin and drinks plasma.26  No young-earth account of it was found.

Part 3: How many times blood-feeding arose, and from what

The count.  About 14,000 insect species feed on blood, of more than a million insect and arachnid species.627  The older figure for separate origins is "at least six," from work of 1984 and 1995.  Mans's 2011 figure is "more than 20 independent occasions," based on the finding that each blood-feeding lineage has its own salivary protein families.67  The two counts differ in method.  Neither supports a single origin, and both describe blood-feeders nested among relatives with other diets.

The routes.  Lehane gives two.  In the first, insects are drawn to a nest or burrow, feeding at first on "dung, fungus or other organic debris," then on shed skin and feathers, then on the host.  Book lice today "develop a phoretic association with birds and mammals, climbing into fur and feathers, to be translocated from one nest site to another."  In the second, the mouthparts already pierce, in insects that eat other insects or that pierce plants.66  Ingle's statement that "most scientists" think blood-feeding replaced plant-eating is too broad.23  Plant-piercing is one of three starting points.

Group Nearest relatives with another diet Does a living member show the switch? Status of a harmless prior diet
Lice Book lice, which eat fungal spores and ride in fur Yes. Chewing lice eat skin and feathers, and some break the skin for blood Evidenced
Vampire moths Fruit-piercing moths of the same genus Yes, within single species, in males only Evidenced and observed
Kissing bugs Predatory assassin bugs Blood-feeders sit inside the predators Evidenced, but the prior diet was insects
Fleas Scorpionflies No. Every adult flea feeds on blood Inferred from the sister family
Ticks Holothyrid mites, scavengers of dead arthropods No. Every tick feeds on blood Inferred from the sister group only
Bed bugs Insect-eating bugs No. All 100 or more species are obligate628 None within the family
Botflies Blowflies, flesh flies and their kin No. All are obligate as larvae29 None

Lice.  Kevin Johnson and colleagues showed in 2004 that parasitic lice sit inside the book lice and bark lice.  These "are free-living insects, which most often feed on fungal spores", yet there are "many records" of them "in the plumage of birds and the pelage of mammals, as well as in their nests".9  Robert de Moya's 2021 study of 2,370 genes found one origin of parasitism, not Johnson's two, with the book louse family Liposcelididae "the sister taxon of all parasitic lice."1010  The step from chewing to sucking has living examples.  The chicken body louse chews at the base of feathers and "often breaks through to the dermis, giving it access to blood."  Elephant lice have chewing mouthparts and a blood diet, and come out as the sister of the sucking lice in three of de Moya's four analyses.610  The body louse genome shows loss where the loss model predicts it, with "just 10 odorant receptor" genes, and is otherwise "functionally complete."3030

The dangerous louse is a recent variant of the mild one.  Only body lice carry typhus, trench fever and relapsing fever, yet head and body lice "were not genetically differentiated" across 207 lice.  Wenjun Li and colleagues propose that body lice arise again and again from head lice where hygiene is poor.313131  That is a change in habit and harm, not a change from another food to blood.

Vampire moths.  The genus Calyptra has 18 species.  "Both sexes of all Calyptra species pierce fruit."  Males of 10 species can also pierce mammal skin, as "facultative blood feeders," and "there are no recorded instances of females doing the same."111111  Jennifer Zaspel's 2012 phylogeny supports "the hypothesis that hematophagy evolved from the fruit-piercing habit."32  Sherwin's reading for the Institute for Creation Research is fair to the facts:  "there are no new structures or new biological information—just a new source of food."3  The limit is that this is an optional meal for males.  It is not a model for a female tick that cannot lay fertile eggs without blood.

Kissing bugs.  Wei Song Hwang and Christiane Weirauch placed the kissing bugs inside the predatory assassin bugs:  blood-feeding "may thus have occurred once or twice independently among predatory assassin bugs."33  Ingle holds that blood-feeding replaced plant-eating and lists kissing bugs among the late converts.23  The evidence says the diet replaced was insects.

Fleas.  Erik Tihelka and colleagues used over 1,400 genes and found "fleas nested within scorpionflies," sister to the small family Nannochoristidae.  They infer an ancestor that "may have fed on plant secretions such as pollination drops from gymnosperms."1414  This supports Gillen and Sherwin's guess about plant juices, on evidence published five years after they wrote.  It has three weaknesses.  It rests on the kinship with scorpionflies that they reject.  The adult diet of the sister family "remains unknown."14  And Karen Meusemann's team, with more genes, could not tell whether fleas lie inside the scorpionflies or beside them.34  That dispute is about the exact branch.  Both sides place fleas as close kin of scorpionflies, and neither is near a separate created kind.

Two facts cut against a late switch.  Flea-like insects from Jurassic rock in China already had "long serrated stylets for piercing tough and thick skin or hides."35  In young-earth geology Jurassic rock was laid down in the Flood, so these insects lived before it.  And the detritus that flea larvae eat is partly second-hand blood.  Lehane notes that flea larvae "feed on this supply of semi-digested blood from the adults," and in the cat flea only 13.3% of larvae matured on adult droppings alone, against 90% given droppings and flea eggs.636

Ticks.  There are about 200 soft ticks, about 700 hard ticks and one species, Nuttalliella namaqua, alone in a third family.12  All feed on blood.  Nuttalliella is the deepest branch, and it feeds on lizards and mice.  Mans's reconstruction found that most blood-feeding characters "were present in the ancestral tick lineage."12  A tick in Burmese amber is "blood-engorged," and another is tangled in a feather.37

The nearest relatives of ticks are the holothyrid mites, "free-living scavenging mites, which mainly live on body fluids of dead arthropods."  It "has been suggested that ticks shared this trait before adaptation to a blood-feeding environment".38  This is the one evidenced candidate for a tick's first diet.  It is close to Gillen and Eakin's "decomposers," though the food is dead animals and not plants.  It is an inference from relatives.  No tick has been seen doing it.

Two of Gillen and Eakin's supporting claims fail.  They write that "it is widely understood that male ticks do not possess any parasitic function."5  But ticks "need to feed on hosts at least once during each stage," so every male fed on blood as a larva and as a nymph.  Adult males of most hard ticks feed again, because they "require attachment to a host and blood feeding to initiate sperm development."  Only in the genus Ixodes can the adult male skip the meal.3939

The plant-haemoglobin claim fails on measurement.  Jan Perner and colleagues fed ticks through a membrane.  On serum without haemoglobin the eggs did not develop, and adding haemoglobin "fully restored egg fertility."  Ticks need heme from food because their own pathway for making it is incomplete.  But the same pathway "is also fully conserved in the genomes of the herbivorous mite Tetranychus urticae, and the predatory mite Metaseiulus occidentalis."1313  A mite that does not drink blood makes its own heme.  A free-living tick ancestor would have had no need of plant haemoglobin.  The loss of heme synthesis is real decay, and it fits the young-earth loss model, but it could only be survived once blood supplied heme.  It followed the diet and cannot have started it.

Part 4: The tick's salivary toolkit

A hard tick stays attached for "a few days to over one week."40  In that time the host's blood should clot, the wound should itch and swell, and white cells should arrive.  None of this happens, because of what the tick injects.

  • Scale. Ivo Francischetti and colleagues reported "hundreds of different proteins" in hard-tick salivary glands, "the majority of which have no known function," including "many novel protein families" whose structure "is unique to ticks." José Ribeiro and Ben Mans later counted "over one thousand different transcripts coding for secreted polypeptides in a single tick species."4015
  • Anticoagulants. The genome of the blacklegged tick holds 74 proteins with a Kunitz domain, "with roles in inhibiting coagulation, angiogenesis and vasodilation."41
  • Evasins. Maud Déruaz and colleagues found proteins that bind chemokines, the signals that call white cells to a wound. Each binds a chosen few: "Evasin-1 binds to CCL3, CCL4, and CCL18; Evasin-3 binds to CXCL8 and CXCL1." Two of them "are unrelated in primary sequence and tertiary structure, and reveal novel folds." A later search found 257 more in three genera of hard ticks.424243
  • Cement. Most hard ticks secrete a substance that anchors the mouthparts and "seals the lesion during feeding."44
  • Gains and losses together. Na Jia and colleagues compared six tick genomes. Families for digesting haemoglobin, moving heme and blocking clots show "3- to 15-fold proliferation." The genes for making heme are mostly gone.4545

Some of this a modification model can absorb.  Salivary apyrase, which stops platelets clumping, arose by "gene duplication of a salivary gland expressed gene with loss of its membrane anchor."15  That is an ordinary enzyme, copied, that lost a part and so became a tool.  Soft-tick clotting inhibitors are also a family of duplicates, and hard and soft ticks "have independently evolved novel antihemostatic mechanisms."38

The rest it cannot.  An evasin has a fold seen nowhere else and a target that exists only in vertebrates.  It has no known use to a scavenger of dead arthropods.  Shipton grants that the salivary proteins of blood-feeders act "to inactivate elements in the blood-clotting cascade, inhibit platelet activation, and scavenge substances capable of causing pain, itching, and oedema," and does not say where they came from.22  The sibling article on parasitoid wasps meets the same problem with venom.

Part 5: Botflies

The botfly family has about 170 species, "the larvae of which are obligate parasites of mammals."2916  They "develop in subcutaneous, nasopharyngeal, or intestinal sites."16  "Adult oestrids are short-lived with vestigial mouthparts."16  The adult does not eat.  Everything the animal will ever eat, it eats as a larva inside a mammal.

The human botfly of Central and South America does not touch its host.  "The eggs are attached to the abdomen of a bloodsucking intermediary mosquito."  The warmth of a host hatches them, the larva enters the skin, and within "5 to 10 weeks" it grows through three stages and drops to the soil.  One case is recorded of a larva that reached the brain of a small child and killed it.464646

Other flies show a graded series.  Fabio Francesconi and Omar Lupi class some as "free living" species that "may initiate myiasis," and others as able to join only once a wound is already infested.46  A young-earth writer could argue that botflies began there.  None found has.  Within the botfly family there is no free-living member, no member with another food, and no adult that feeds.  This is the one group in the article for which the literature searched holds no young-earth statement at all.

Part 6: The disease burden

Group Disease Measured burden
Ticks Lyme disease About 476,000 people diagnosed and treated each year in the United States, 2010 to 201847
Ticks Livestock and human disease About 10% of 867 tick species carry pathogens; the economic cost is high but "there is a lack of reliable data"48
Fleas Plague The Black Death caused "more than 50 million deaths in Europe" in the fourteenth century; 30% to 60% of untreated bubonic cases die4949
Lice Typhus, trench fever, relapsing fever Three bacteria, all carried by the body louse; the largest typhus outbreak since the Second World War was in Burundi50
Mites Scabies More than 200 million people at any time; 0.21% of the world's disability burden, with deaths assumed to be zero5152
Mites Scrub typhus, carried by chiggers About one million cases a year53
Botflies Skin infestation The human botfly is "the most common cause of myiasis in the Americas"; a death is on record4646

In most of these the arthropod is the carrier and a microbe does the killing.  The origin of those microbes is the subject of Bacterial Pathogens as Broken Bacteria.  How ectoparasites came through the Flood is argued under Life Outside the Ark, a planned article.  The standard young-earth answer is that they rode on their hosts.

Objections and responses

"Secular biologists agree that parasitism is secondary, so the young-earth model is confirmed."  They agree on the direction.  Lehane's nest-dweller that becomes a hitchhiker and then a skin-feeder is Gillen and Sherwin's proposal.  They do not agree on the time, and the direction alone does not give a harmless first diet.  Blaschke found predators, not plant-eaters, behind 83 of 100 parasite lineages.

"Male ticks do not feed, so ticks were not made as parasites."  Every male tick fed on blood twice before it was adult, and adult males of most hard ticks feed again.  The claim holds only for adult males of Ixodes.

"The vampire moth proves the point."  It proves that a fruit-piercer can take blood with no new equipment.  It is optional, it is confined to males, and no moth depends on it.  It cannot stand for the tick or the botfly.

"Face mites show parasites becoming harmless, the opposite of the Fall."  That is how Smith's team reads the genome.  The direction is an inference from gene loss and from the mite's relatives.  What is observed is a harmless mite with a decayed genome, and that fits either account.

"Tick saliva shows that parasites were designed as parasites."  This is the strongest objection, and it comes from both sides.  A skeptic says a designer who made evasins made them to defeat a host's defences.  A creationist has three answers, each with a cost.  The proteins had another use before the Fall, for which there is no evidence.  Or God altered the design at the Curse, as Sherwin allows, which no experiment can test.  Or the families arose since by duplication and selection, which grants new folds and new functions in a few thousand years, more than young-earth writers usually grant to mutation.

"Loss of heme synthesis shows ticks are degenerate."  It does show loss.  The loss followed the blood diet, as Part 3 shows, and the same genomes carry gene families expanded up to 15-fold.

Issues and unanswered questions

  • No young-earth account of tick saliva exists. The genomes of holothyrid and opilioacarid mites, the nearest free-living relatives, would show whether evasin-like or Kunitz genes exist outside blood-feeders. None was found published.
  • No young-earth account of botflies exists.
  • The first diet was usually not plants. Blaschke's result stands unanswered in the young-earth literature found. If insects and carrion were permitted food before the Fall, as Shipton suggests, lice, kissing bugs and perhaps ticks have a harmless first diet. If only plants were, only the moths and perhaps the fleas do.
  • The time is short. Skin-piercing flea-like insects and engorged ticks are in rock and amber that young-earth geology assigns to the Flood or soon after. The switch would have to fall between the Fall and the Flood.
  • Evidence gaps in this article. Mans 2011, Klimov and OConnor 2013, Zaspel 2012, Jongejan and Uilenberg 2004 and Raoult and Roux 1999 were read only as abstracts. The holothyrid diet is cited through Mans 2002, not from Walter and Proctor 1998. Zaspel's 2007 feeding experiment was not obtained. The Creation Research Society Quarterly was searched by one route only, and nothing on these five groups was found.
  • The every-adult claim for face mites rests on 19 people in one city.

Verdict

The scope asked what a designed tick was eating first, and whether any lineage shows the switch.  Lineages do show it.  Lice have living relatives that eat fungi and ride in fur, and living members at each step from skin to blood.  Vampire moths make the switch within a single species.  Kissing bugs came from insect-eaters.  For these the young-earth claim of a harmless first diet is as well supported as the secular account, because it is the same account on a shorter clock.  Face mites and feather mites are mostly harmless now.

For fleas the claim is plausible and indirect.  For ticks it is a proposal.  Nothing but blood-feeding is known in any tick, living or fossil, and the mechanism Gillen and Eakin offer is contradicted by the heme biology of mites.  For botflies there is no proposal to assess.

The design answer is weakest at the tick's saliva.  Evasins, Kunitz anticoagulants and cement are gains, aimed at the defences of a vertebrate, and a model built on loss and displacement does not supply them.  Either they were designed for the bite, or they arose after the Fall at a rate the model has not shown to be possible.  Young-earth writers have not yet chosen.

Sources

  1. 1.

    Gillen, Alan L., and Frank Sherwin.  “The Origin of Fleas and the Genesis of Plague.”  Answers in Depth 10.  May 14, 2015.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Answers in Genesis.  Gillen taught biology at Liberty University;  Sherwin is on the staff of the Institute for Creation Research.  Read from the downloaded page;  quotations located by section heading.  Copyright.

    1. 1a.

      Section Parasitism as a Secondary State:  “We postulate that fleas, ticks, mites, and lice may have started to be “hitchhikers” as phoretic associations.” ↩ ↩

    2. 1b.

      Section Parasitism as a Secondary State:  “Creation biologists would suggest that parasitism is a secondary state in nature.” ↩

    3. 1c.

      Section The Flea Kind and Unique Anatomy:  “Most evolutionary biologists believe that fleas once had wings that were lost through time while larger hind legs evolved and that they are descendants of Mecoptera (scorpion flies). But we believe they were specially created as a distinct “kind”—designed fully formed to jump (not fly) and travel via an animal host.” ↩

    4. 1d.

      Section The Origin and “Discovery” of the Flea:  “They were most likely created as plant eaters to help with the recycling of leafy organic matter and detritus as flea larvae do today.” ↩

    5. 1e.

      Section The Flea Kind and Unique Anatomy:  “mouthparts with a prominent proboscis adapted for piercing tissues (probably plants in pre-Fall era) such as the skin and sucking blood (probably plant juices in pre-Fall era)”. ↩

  2. 2.

    Blaschke, Jeremy.  “Toward a Young-Earth Model of Parasite Evolution.”  Journal of Creation Theology and Science Series B: Life Sciences 8:1–5.  2018.  One abstract among the Creation Biology Society's conference abstracts for 2018;  the author is at Union University.  The journal's site did not answer on 2026-09-29 and the Wayback copy was read.  CC BY.  Mirror:  Archive.org

    1. 2a.

      Page 1:  “from Young Earth Creationism (YEC) arises several extraordinary scientific claims, specifically here, that all species of parasites have evolved from non-parasitic ancestors in less than 6,000 years”. ↩

    2. 2b.

      Page 1:  “The majority of parasite lineages (53%) contained <10 species total and 92% included <1,000 species.” ↩

    3. 2c.

      Page 1:  “In this particular analysis, no distinctly herbivorous ancestors were found. Instead, the ancestral state of most parasites was recovered as predaceous (83%), while the rest were saprophagous (7%), fungivorous (6%), or had unknown ancestral states (4%).” ↩ ↩

    4. 2d.

      Page 1:  “This highlights the need for a deeper discussion about biological death before the fall and potential interpretations of Genesis 1:30 within the YEC community.” ↩

  3. 3.

    Sherwin, Frank.  “Morbid Moth Meals: Variation at Work.”  Creation Science Update.  Institute for Creation Research.  Nov 6, 2008.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Read from the downloaded page.  Copyright.

    1. 3a.

      Paragraph 4:  “From a creation perspective, the moth mouthparts were originally designed to pierce fruit. A switch to a blood diet doesn’t demonstrate macroevolution, but instead an originally good design now misplaced and redirected due to environmental forces.” ↩

    2. 3b.

      Paragraph 3:  “But there are no new structures or new biological information—just a new source of food.” ↩

  4. 4.

    Catchpoole, David.  “‘Vampire moth’ discovered.”  Creation 32(2):32.  Apr 2010.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Creation Ministries International's magazine;  posted online 14 June 2011.  Read from the downloaded page.  Copyright.

    1. 4a.

      Paragraph 4:  “The “vampire moth” is more aptly viewed as yet another example of how a creature that is normally herbivorous can turn to non-plant food sources when it suits, as has happened with many creatures since the Fall.” ↩

  5. 5.

    Gillen, Alan L., and Matthew Eakin.  “The Origin of Ticks and the Genesis and Emergence of Lyme Disease.”  Answers in Depth 16.  Aug 4, 2021.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Answers in Genesis.  Read from the downloaded page;  quotations located by section heading.  Its only reference for the kinship of ticks and mites is a magazine news item.  Copyright.

    1. 5a.

      Section Which Came First?:  “Most likely they were decomposers living off dead plant and organic matter, recycling the elements in nature. At some time after Adam’s sin and the curse, they lost their ability to extract necessary materials from plant hemoglobin and started depending upon animal blood.” ↩ ↩

    2. 5b.

      Section Which Came First?:  “Although mites and ticks may be in different baramins, their functions in the ecosystem may parallel one another and might provide clues to their original very good purpose. More research on this topic is needed.” ↩

    3. 5c.

      Section Summary and Conclusions:  “Ticks may not have been originally parasitic, as it is widely understood that male ticks do not possess any parasitic function.” ↩

  6. 6.

    Lehane, Michael J.  “The Biology of Blood-Sucking in Insects.”  Cambridge University Press.  Cambridge University Press.  2 edition.  2005.  The standard textbook.  Read from a PDF copy;  the printed page number is the PDF page minus 16, anchored at printed pages 1 and 284.  It covers insects, not ticks or mites.  Copyright.

    1. 6a.

      Page 1:  “It is estimated that there are 14 000 species of insects from five orders that feed on blood (Adams, 1999) but, thankfully, only 300 to 400 species regularly attract our attention.” ↩

    2. 6b.

      Page 7:  “It is believed that haematophagy arose independently at least six times among the arthropods of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods (145–65 million years ago) (Balashov, 1984; Ribeiro, 1995).” ↩ ↩

    3. 6c.

      Page 8:  “Initially feeding on dung, fungus or other organic debris, the insects attracted to the nest would also have encountered considerable quantities of sloughed skin, hair or feathers.” ↩ ↩

    4. 6d.

      Page 8:  “Indeed, psocids may become so intimately associated with this habitat that they develop a phoretic association with birds and mammals, climbing into fur and feathers, to be translocated from one nest site to another”. ↩

    5. 6e.

      Page 8:  “Menacanthus stramineus, a present-day mallophagan, feeds at the base of feathers or on the skin of the chicken. The insect often breaks through to the dermis, giving it access to blood on which it will feed”. ↩

    6. 6f.

      Page 13:  “It is thought that haematophagy developed along these lines in the ancestors of the blood-feeding bugs and in blood-feeding rhagionids and possibly in some blood-feeding Diptera.”  "These lines" are descent from insects that ate other insects. ↩

    7. 6g.

      Page 92:  “This potentially wasted resource is put to good use in some fleas: the larval forms feed on this supply of semi-digested blood from the adults.” ↩

  7. 7.

    Mans, Ben J.  “Evolution of Vertebrate Hemostatic and Inflammatory Control Mechanisms in Blood-Feeding Arthropods.”  Journal of Innate Immunity 3(1):41–51.  2011.  Abstract only.  The full text is behind a paywall and no open copy was found, so the list of the separate origins was not seen.  Copyright.

    1. 7a.

      Section Abstract:  “Arthropods evolved blood-feeding lifestyles on more than 20 independent occasions. A comparison of sialomes (secretory salivary gland protein family repertoires) corroborates this and indicates that unique protein families are found for different blood-feeding lineages.” ↩ ↩

  8. 8.

    Weinstein, Sara B., and Armand M. Kuris.  “Independent origins of parasitism in Animalia.”  Biology Letters 12(7):20160324.  2016.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  Copyright.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 8a.

      Section Abstract:  “we find that parasitism has independently evolved at least 223 times in just 15 phyla, with the majority of identified independent parasitic groups occurring in the Arthropoda, at or below the level of Family”. ↩

    2. 8b.

      Section Results and discussion:  “the majority of independent origins of parasitism within arthropods occur within the mites and flies”.  “Parasitism-prone groups, notably flies and mites, typically include free-living species that exhibit diverse and flexible trophic strategies, with predation, saprophagy, necrophagy and facultative parasitism observed within the same genus.” ↩

  9. 9.

    Johnson, Kevin P. et al.  “Multiple origins of parasitism in lice.”  Proceedings of the Royal Society B 271(1550):1771–1776.  2004.  Scanned publisher PDF from PubMed Central;  folios read from the running heads.  Its finding of two origins was revised to one by de Moya 2021.  Copyright.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 9a.

      Page 1771:  “Psocoptera are free-living insects, which most often feed on fungal spores (Mockford 1993). However, there are many records of various species of Psocoptera in the plumage of birds and the pelage of mammals, as well as in their nests”. ↩ ↩

  10. 10.

    de Moya, Robert S. et al.  “Phylogenomics of Parasitic and Nonparasitic Lice (Insecta: Psocodea): Combining Sequence Data and Exploring Compositional Bias Solutions in Next Generation Data Sets.”  Systematic Biology 70(4):719–738.  2021.  Read as full text from the publisher's web page, which carries no folios, so quotations are located by section.  Copyright.

    1. 10a.

      Section Abstract:  “All phylogenomic analyses, including both concatenated and coalescent methods suggest a single origin of parasitism within the order Psocodea, resolving conflicting results from previous studies.” ↩

    2. 10b.

      Section Results:  “The family Liposcelididae was also always recovered as monophyletic and as the sister taxon of all parasitic lice (100% BS) as predicted from morphology (Lyal 1985).” ↩ ↩

    3. 10c.

      Section Results:  “However, under 1) degeneracy coding, 2) first and second codon positions only, and 3) second codon positions only, Rhynchophthirina was recovered as sister to Anoplura (sucking lice) (100% BS).” ↩

  11. 11.

    Bashir, Asad et al.  “Taxonomic Revision of Vampire Moths of the Genus Calyptra (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Calpinae) in Chinese Fauna.”  Insects 16(5):534.  2025.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  A taxonomic paper that summarises the feeding records of Hans Bänziger and Jennifer Zaspel, which were not obtained.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 11a.

      Section Abstract:  “Calyptra Ochsenheimer, 1816 is an important genus of fruit piercers and blood feeders with 18 described species worldwide. Both sexes of all Calyptra species pierce fruit.” ↩

    2. 11b.

      Section Introduction:  “the males of 10 representative species have been identified as capable of piercing mammalian skin and feeding on blood”. ↩ ↩

    3. 11c.

      Section Introduction:  “While these males are facultative blood feeders, there are no recorded instances of females doing the same.” ↩

  12. 12.

    Mans, Ben J. et al.  “The Mitochondrial Genomes of Nuttalliella namaqua (Ixodoidea: Nuttalliellidae) and Argas africolumbae (Ixodoidae: Argasidae): Estimation of Divergence Dates for the Major Tick Lineages and Reconstruction of Ancestral Blood-Feeding Characters.”  PLoS ONE 7(11):e49461.  2012.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 12a.

      Section Introduction:  “The Ixodida (ticks) are composed of three families, Argasidae (soft ticks ∼200 species), Ixodidae (hard ticks ∼700 species) and the monotypic Nuttalliellidae”. ↩

    2. 12b.

      Section Abstract:  “N. namaqua larvae fed successfully on lizards and mice in a prolonged manner similar to many argasids and all ixodids.”  “Ancestral reconstruction of characters involved in blood-feeding indicates that most of the characteristics unique to either hard or soft tick families were present in the ancestral tick lineage.” ↩ ↩

  13. 13.

    Perner, Jan et al.  “Acquisition of exogenous haem is essential for tick reproduction.”  eLife 5:e12318.  2016.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 13a.

      Section Abstract:  “ticks require dietary haemoglobin as an exogenous source of haem since, feeding with haemoglobin-depleted serum led to aborted embryogenesis. Supplementation of serum with haemoglobin fully restored egg fertility.”  “Unlike most eukaryotes, ticks possess an incomplete haem biosynthetic pathway”. ↩

    2. 13b.

      Section Results, Ticks have an incomplete pathway for haem biosynthesis:  “The canonical haem biosynthetic pathway is also fully conserved in the genomes of the herbivorous mite Tetranychus urticae, and the predatory mite Metaseiulus occidentalis, but is substantially reduced in the genome of the obligatory blood-feeding tick”. ↩ ↩

  14. 14.

    Tihelka, Erik et al.  “Fleas are parasitic scorpionflies.”  Palaeoentomology 3(6):641–653.  2020.  Publisher PDF;  folios read from the page footers.  CC BY-NC.

    1. 14a.

      Page 641:  “we consistently recover fleas nested within scorpionflies (Mecoptera) as sister to the relictual southern hemisphere family Nannochoristidae”.  Abstract. ↩

    2. 14b.

      Page 646:  “may have fed on plant secretions such as pollination drops from gymnosperms”.  “from feeding on plant secretions to blood-feeding is an evolutionary trajectory that occurred independently in at least one other hematophagous insect clade, the dipteran infraorder Culicomorpha.”  The sentence opens "The transition";  a page footer stands after those two words in the PDF text. ↩

    3. 14c.

      Page 646:  “The diet of the adults remains unknown, but probably consists of nectar or fruit juices (Palmer, 2010).”  Said of adult Nannochoristidae, the sister family. ↩ ↩

  15. 15.

    Ribeiro, José M. C., and Ben J. Mans.  “TickSialoFam (TSFam): A Database That Helps to Classify Tick Salivary Proteins, a Review on Tick Salivary Protein Function and Evolution, With Considerations on the Tick Sialome Switching Phenomenon.”  Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology 10:374.  2020.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 15a.

      Section Abstract:  “Recent transcriptomic studies have revealed over one thousand different transcripts coding for secreted polypeptides in a single tick species.” ↩ ↩

    2. 15b.

      Section Abstract:  “but also families that are found exclusively in ticks, such as the evasins, Isac, DAP36, and many others”. ↩

    3. 15c.

      Section Introduction:  “Evolution of salivary apyrase, as an adaptation to blood feeding, thus happened by processes of gene duplication of a salivary gland expressed gene with loss of its membrane anchor (Champagne et al., 1995).” ↩

  16. 16.

    Li, Xinyu et al.  “Reproductive behavior and early immature morphology of Portschinskia magnifica: implications for evolutionary biology in bot flies (Diptera: Oestridae).”  Current Zoology 71(4):524.  Dec 2, 2024.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  The date is that of online publication;  the issue is dated 2025.  CC BY-NC.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 16a.

      Section Introduction, which follows the abstract without a heading:  “Despite being a relatively small family with ~170 species classified into 4 subfamilies (Cuterebrinae, Gasterophilinae, Hypodermatinae, and Oestrinae)”. ↩ ↩

    2. 16b.

      Section Introduction, which follows the abstract without a heading:  “Adult oestrids are short-lived with vestigial mouthparts”. ↩ ↩

    3. 16c.

      Section Introduction, which follows the abstract without a heading:  “First-instar larvae of bot flies enter hosts through dermal or mucosal penetration and develop in subcutaneous, nasopharyngeal, or intestinal sites”. ↩

  17. 17.

    Thoemmes, Megan S. et al.  “Ubiquity and Diversity of Human-Associated Demodex Mites.”  PLoS ONE 9(8):e106265.  2014.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  An online journal without page numbers, so quotations are located by section.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 17a.

      Section Results:  “Based on the observation of visually identifiable mite specimens within our samples, the prevalence of mites in adults was 14% (n = 253)”. ↩

    2. 17b.

      Section Results:  “However, we were able to extract Demodex 16S rDNA from 100% of adults over the age of 18 (Figure 1A; Mean age: 37±10.4 years, n = 19).”  Section Discussion:  “we found that every adult over 18 years of age and 70% of 18 year olds had detectable Demodex 16S rDNA in the collected sebum of facial samples”.  Ten eighteen-year-olds were tested, of whom seven were positive. ↩ ↩

  18. 18.

    Doña, Jorge et al.  “Feather mites play a role in cleaning host feathers: New insights from DNA metabarcoding and microscopy.”  Molecular Ecology 28(2):203–218.  2019.  Read as full text from PubMed Central, which carries no folios, so quotations are located by section.  First published online in 2018.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 18a.

      Section Abstract:  “Results showed fungi and potentially bacteria as the main food resources for feather mites (apart from potential bird uropygial gland oil).”  Section 3.1:  “fungal material (spores and hyphae) was the most prevalent type of gut content”. ↩

    2. 18b.

      Section Abstract:  “Importantly, we did not find any evidence of feather mites feeding upon bird resources (e.g., blood, skin) other than potentially uropygial gland oil.” ↩ ↩

    3. 18c.

      Section Abstract:  “supporting previous evidence for a commensalistic–mutualistic role of feather mites, which are revealed as likely fungivore–microbivore–detritivore symbionts of bird feathers”. ↩

  19. 19.

    Smith, Gilbert et al.  “Human Follicular Mites: Ectoparasites Becoming Symbionts.”  Molecular Biology and Evolution 39(6):msac125.  2022.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  The senior author is M. Alejandra Perotti.  Quotations located by section.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 19a.

      Section Abstract:  “We propose that Demodex folliculorum (Acari) represents a transitional stage from a host-injuring obligate parasite to an obligate symbiont.” ↩

    2. 19b.

      Section Abstract:  “resulting in the smallest number of protein-coding genes yet identified among panarthropods”.  Section Demodex has the Lowest Number of Protein-Coding Genes Identified in Arthropods:  “Demodex exhibits the smallest number of coding genes (9,707) identified to date and the second smallest genome (51.6 Mbp) among panarthropods”.  Section Abstract:  “Single uninucleate muscle cells are sufficient to operate each of the three segments that form each walking leg.” ↩ ↩

    3. 19c.

      Section Introduction:  “Their prevalence in humans is likely above 90%”. ↩

    4. 19d.

      Section Introduction:  “In most humans, D. folliculorum (hereafter Demodex) is completely harmless, although clinical disease associated with this mite can manifest in some people”.  Section Abstract:  “The loss of DNA repair genes coupled with extreme endogamy might have set this mite species on an evolutionary dead-end trajectory.” ↩

    5. 19e.

      Section Demodex Shows the Lowest Number of Cells Identified Among Arthropods:  “There have been several reports that Demodex does not have an anus, and when Demodex dies, the accumulated waste spills into the pores of the skin and leads to inflammation; this is not correct”. ↩

  20. 20.

    “Proceedings of the Microbe Forum, June 2007.”  Answers Research Journal 1:1–6.  Edited by Georgia Purdom and Joseph W. Francis.  2008.  The passage quoted is from Joseph W. Francis's own contribution.  Publisher PDF;  the running head carries the folio.  Copyright.

    1. 20a.

      Page 3:  “the origin of microbial based disease has at least two primary causes, (1) post-Fall genetic alteration of the original good microbe and/or (2) post-Fall displacement or movement of the microbe from the site where it performed its beneficial function”. ↩

  21. 21.

    Sherwin, Frank.  “Parasites: Unwelcome Guests.”  Answers Magazine.  Jan 1, 2013.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Answers in Genesis magazine, January to March 2013.  The author is on the staff of the Institute for Creation Research.  Read from the downloaded page.  Copyright.

    1. 21a.

      Section Clues from God’s Word about Parasites:  “God may have adjusted the original design of these creatures at the time of the Curse, allowing them to feed off other creatures. Or perhaps female mosquitoes lived off high-protein plant extracts before the Fall, using their mouthparts to penetrate into the plant tissues.” ↩

    2. 21b.

      Section Clues from God’s Word about Parasites:  “Creation zoologists do not yet have all the answers”. ↩

    3. 21c.

      Section Clues from God’s Word about Parasites:  “the first humans and all animals were vegetarian”. ↩

  22. 22.

    Shipton, Warren A.  “Destructive parasites: expressions of God’s creation?”  Journal of Creation 33(2):84–92.  2019.  Creation Ministries International's journal.  Publisher PDF;  folios read from the page footers.  Treats mosquitoes and black flies in detail and names fleas, ticks and mites only in a list.  Copyright.

    1. 22a.

      Page 84:  “It is argued that blood-sucking insects originally fed on nectar, honeydew, and perhaps other insects.”  Abstract. ↩

    2. 22b.

      Page 84:  “These include mosquitoes, flies, fleas, bugs, vampire moths, ticks, and mites. Two groups of blood-feeding insects, black flies (Simuliidae) and mosquitoes, will be considered.” ↩

    3. 22c.

      Page 85:  “For components that do have a known function, the major targets are to inactivate elements in the blood-clotting cascade, inhibit platelet activation, and scavenge substances capable of causing pain, itching, and oedema.” ↩

  23. 23.

    Ingle, Matthew E.  “Out for Blood! Mosquitoes, Leeches, Lampreys & More.”  Answers Magazine.  Jan 1, 2021.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Answers in Genesis magazine, January to March 2021.  The author teaches biology at The Master's University.  He credits Jeremy Blaschke with a threshold of 1,500 species per lineage;  Blaschke's 2018 abstract gives 10 and 1,000.  Copyright.

    1. 23a.

      Section Blood-Sucking Beginnings:  “Considering that most scientists, including secular scientists, believe blood-sucking strategies replaced plant eating (known as phytophagy), it seems reasonable to conclude that hematophagy resulted as a consequence of the destructive influences of humanity’s rebellion against God.” ↩ ↩

    2. 23b.

      Section Blood-Sucking Beginnings:  “many other groups, including the 17 species of blood-feeding moths, 130 species of kissing bugs, the oxpecker and vampire finch, and the 3 species of vampire bat, likely developed their taste for blood several hundred years after the flood”. ↩ ↩

  24. 24.

    Mitchell, Elizabeth.  “Face Mites ‘R’ (on) Us.”  Answers in Depth 9.  Oct 14, 2014.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Answers in Genesis news commentary on Thoemmes 2014.  It places Demodex brevis in sweat glands;  the paper says sebaceous glands.  Copyright.

    1. 24a.

      Section Molecules-to-Mites?:  “In other words, they must have been harmless, as God called all He had made “very good” (Genesis 1:31).” ↩

  25. 25.

    Klimov, Pavel B., and Barry OConnor.  “Is Permanent Parasitism Reversible?—Critical Evidence from Early Evolution of House Dust Mites.”  Systematic Biology 62(3):411–423.  2013.  Abstract only.  The full text is behind a paywall and no open copy was found.  Copyright.

    1. 25a.

      Section Abstract:  “Here, we present conclusive evidence that house dust mites, a group of medically important free-living organisms, evolved from permanent parasites of warm-blooded vertebrates.” ↩

  26. 26.

    Arlian, Larry G., and Marjorie S. Morgan.  “A review of Sarcoptes scabiei: past, present and future.”  Parasites & Vectors 10:297.  2017.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 26a.

      Section Host-parasite interactions (immune modulation):  “While burrowing in the lower epidermis of the skin, scabies mites ingest plasma from the host that contains host antibody”. ↩

  27. 27.

    Graça-Souza, Aurélio V. et al.  “Adaptations against heme toxicity in blood-feeding arthropods.”  Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 36(4):322–335.  2006.  Abstract only, from PubMed.  The full text is behind a paywall and the repository copy is on request.  Copyright.

    1. 27a.

      Section Abstract:  “However, from more than a million species of insects and arachnids presently living on earth, only about 14,000 species developed the capacity to feed on vertebrate blood.” ↩

  28. 28.

    Roth, Steffen et al.  “Bedbugs Evolved before Their Bat Hosts and Did Not Co-speciate with Ancient Humans.”  Current Biology 29(11):1847–1853.  2019.  Publisher PDF.  Copyright.

    1. 28a.

      Page 1847:  “All 100+ bedbug species (Cimicidae) are obligate blood-sucking parasites”.  Summary. ↩

  29. 29.

    Zhang, Dong et al.  “Phylogenetic inference of calyptrates, with the first mitogenomes for Gasterophilinae (Diptera: Oestridae) and Paramacronychiinae (Diptera: Sarcophagidae).”  International Journal of Biological Sciences 12(5):489–504.  2016.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY-NC.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 29a.

      Section Conclusion:  “the Oestridae, which is a small family of less than 200 species”.  “the larvae of which are obligate parasites of mammals”.  Two reference numbers stand between the two phrases in the source. ↩ ↩

  30. 30.

    Kirkness, Ewen F. et al.  “Genome sequences of the human body louse and its primary endosymbiont provide insights into the permanent parasitic lifestyle.”  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(27):12168–12173.  2010.  Read as full text from PubMed Central;  quotations located by section.  Copyright.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 30a.

      Section Odorant-, gustatory-, and chemosensory-related genes:  “The genome sequence revealed just 10 odorant receptor (Or) genes, fewer than any other insect examined to date by almost an order of magnitude.” ↩

    2. 30b.

      Section Comparative Genomics, Hemimetabolous outgroup:  “In addition to being the smallest genome of any insect studied to date, the body louse genome is, as far as can be determined, functionally complete.” ↩

  31. 31.

    Li, Wenjun et al.  “Genotyping of Human Lice Suggests Multiple Emergences of Body Lice from Local Head Louse Populations.”  PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 4(3):e641.  2010.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 31a.

      Section Abstract, Background:  “Head and body lice have different behaviours and only the latter have been involved in outbreaks of infectious diseases including epidemic typhus, trench fever and louse borne recurrent fever.” ↩

    2. 31b.

      Section Abstract, Methods and Findings:  “Interestingly, head and body lice were not genetically differentiated.” ↩

    3. 31c.

      Section Abstract, Conclusions:  “We propose a hypothesis for the emergence of body lice, and suggest that humans with both low hygiene and head louse infestations provide an opportunity for head louse variants, able to ingest a larger blood meal (a required characteristic of body lice), to colonize clothing.” ↩

  32. 32.

    Zaspel, Jennifer M. et al.  “A molecular phylogenetic analysis of the vampire moths and their fruit-piercing relatives (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Calpinae).”  Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 65(2):786–791.  2012.  Abstract, highlights and section previews only.  The full text is behind a paywall, so no page can be given and the reconstruction itself was not seen.  Copyright.

    1. 32a.

      Section Highlights:  “Our results support the hypothesis that hematophagy evolved from the fruit-piercing habit.” ↩

  33. 33.

    Hwang, Wei Song, and Christiane Weirauch.  “Evolutionary History of Assassin Bugs (Insecta: Hemiptera: Reduviidae): Insights from Divergence Dating and Ancestral State Reconstruction.”  PLoS ONE 7(9):e45523.  2012.  Publisher PDF.  CC BY.

    1. 33a.

      Page 1:  “The evolution of blood-feeding may thus have occurred once or twice independently among predatory assassin bugs.”  Abstract. ↩

  34. 34.

    Meusemann, Karen et al.  “Are fleas highly modified Mecoptera? Phylogenomic resolution of Antliophora (Insecta: Holometabola).”  bioRxiv.  Nov 20, 2020.  A preprint, not peer reviewed.  56 species and more than 3,000 genes.  All rights reserved.

    1. 34a.

      Section Abstract:  “our data and/or analyses are unable to distinguish whether fleas are sister to a monophyletic Mecoptera, or whether they arose from within extant mecopteran families, rendering Mecoptera paraphyletic”. ↩

  35. 35.

    Gao, Tai-ping et al.  “Mid-Mesozoic Flea-like Ectoparasites of Feathered or Haired Vertebrates.”  Current Biology 22(8):732–735.  2012.  Publisher PDF.  Copyright.

    1. 35a.

      Page 732:  “Large body size and long serrated stylets for piercing tough and thick skin or hides of hosts suggest that these primitive ectoparasites might have lived on and sucked the blood of relatively large hosts”.  Summary. ↩

  36. 36.

    Rust, Michael K.  “The Biology and Ecology of Cat Fleas and Advancements in Their Pest Management: A Review.”  Insects 8(4):118.  2017.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 36a.

      Section 2.2. Biology and Life History:  “Only 13.3% of larvae developed in to adults when fed flea feces compared with 90% when fed flea feces and non-viable flea eggs. However, larvae did not develop on flea eggs alone”. ↩

  37. 37.

    Peñalver, Enrique et al.  “Ticks parasitised feathered dinosaurs as revealed by Cretaceous amber assemblages.”  Nature Communications 8:1924.  2017.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 37a.

      Section Abstract:  “A †Cornupalpatum burmanicum hard tick is entangled in a pennaceous feather.”  “A third conspecific specimen is blood-engorged, its anatomical features suggesting that deinocrotonids fed rapidly to engorgement and had multiple gonotrophic cycles.” ↩

  38. 38.

    Mans, Ben J. et al.  “Evolution of Hematophagy in Ticks: Common Origins for Blood Coagulation and Platelet Aggregation Inhibitors from Soft Ticks of the Genus Ornithodoros.”  Molecular Biology and Evolution 19(10):1695–1705.  2002.  Read as full text from the publisher's web page, which carries no folios.  The account of holothyrid mites is relayed from Walter and Proctor 1998, which was not obtained.  Copyright.

    1. 38a.

      Section Introduction:  “Holothyrida is a group of free-living scavenging mites, which mainly live on body fluids of dead arthropods. It has been suggested that ticks shared this trait before adaptation to a blood-feeding environment (Walter and Proctor 1998 ).” ↩

    2. 38b.

      Section Abstract:  “Comparison with hemostatic inhibitors of hard ticks suggests that the two main tick families have independently evolved novel antihemostatic mechanisms.” ↩

  39. 39.

    Tahir, Djamel et al.  “Interrupted Blood Feeding in Ticks: Causes and Consequences.”  Microorganisms 8(6):910.  2020.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 39a.

      Section 1. Introduction:  “After hatching from the eggs, ticks need to feed on hosts at least once during each stage.” ↩

    2. 39b.

      Section 2. Evidence for Interrupted Feeding in Ticks:  “While spermatogenesis occurs prior to adult feeding in Prostriata ticks, males of most of the species in the Metastriata group require attachment to a host and blood feeding to initiate sperm development”.  The Prostriata are the genus Ixodes;  the Metastriata are all other hard ticks. ↩

  40. 40.

    Francischetti, Ivo M. B. et al.  “The role of saliva in tick feeding.”  Frontiers in Bioscience 14:2051–2088.  2009.  Author manuscript from PubMed Central, which carries no folios.  Copyright.

    1. 40a.

      Section 2. Introduction:  “Ixodids feed for prolonged periods of time, varying from a few days to over one week, while argasids typically feed for less than one hour.” ↩

    2. 40b.

      Section Abstract:  “hard ticks have hundreds of different proteins expressed in their salivary glands, the majority of which have no known function, and include many novel protein families (e.g., their primary structure is unique to ticks)”. ↩

  41. 41.

    Gulia-Nuss, Monika et al.  “Genomic insights into the Ixodes scapularis tick vector of Lyme disease.”  Nature Communications 7:10507.  2016.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  The senior author is Catherine A. Hill.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 41a.

      Section Ticks as parasites:  “Notably, the genome reveals an expanded repertoire (74, 0.4% of the predicted proteome) of proteins containing a Kunitz domain (Supplementary Table 16), implicated in protease inhibition and channel-blocking activity, with roles in inhibiting coagulation, angiogenesis and vasodilation.” ↩

  42. 42.

    Déruaz, Maud et al.  “Ticks produce highly selective chemokine binding proteins with antiinflammatory activity.”  Journal of Experimental Medicine 205(9):2019–2031.  2008.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  The senior author is Amanda E. I. Proudfoot.  The tick is the brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus.  CC BY-NC-SA.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 42a.

      Section Abstract:  “Evasin-1 binds to CCL3, CCL4, and CCL18; Evasin-3 binds to CXCL8 and CXCL1; and Evasin-4 binds to CCL5 and CCL11.” ↩

    2. 42b.

      Section Abstract:  “We report the characterization of Evasin-1 and -3, which are unrelated in primary sequence and tertiary structure, and reveal novel folds.” ↩

  43. 43.

    Hayward, Jenni et al.  “Ticks from diverse genera encode chemokine-inhibitory evasin proteins.”  Journal of Biological Chemistry 292(38):15670–15680.  2017.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  The senior author is Martin J. Stone.  Copyright.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 43a.

      Section Abstract:  “we have identified 257 new putative evasin sequences encoded by the genomes or salivary or visceral transcriptomes of numerous hard ticks, spanning the genera Rhipicephalus, Amblyomma, and Ixodes of the Ixodidae family”. ↩

  44. 44.

    Suppan, Johannes et al.  “Tick attachment cement – reviewing the mysteries of a biological skin plug system.”  Biological Reviews 93(2):1056–1076.  2018.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 44a.

      Section Abstract:  “The majority of ticks in the family Ixodidae secrete a substance anchoring their mouthparts to the host skin. This substance is termed cement. It has adhesive properties and seals the lesion during feeding.” ↩

  45. 45.

    Jia, Na et al.  “Large-Scale Comparative Analyses of Tick Genomes Elucidate Their Genetic Diversity and Vector Capacities.”  Cell 182(5):1328–1340.  2020.  Publisher PDF;  folios read from the page footers.  Six hard-tick genomes.  Copyright.

    1. 45a.

      Page 1332:  “3- to 15-fold proliferation of peptidase family M13, ABC-2 family transporter protein, serine protease inhibitor, and glutathione S-transferase occurred in tick genomes”. ↩

    2. 45b.

      Page 1333:  “blood-dependent ticks have lost most genes encoding heme biosynthesis and degradation, making them strictly dependent on exogenous sources of heme from the host”. ↩

  46. 46.

    Francesconi, Fabio, and Omar Lupi.  “Myiasis.”  Clinical Microbiology Reviews 25(1):79–105.  2012.  Read as full text from PubMed Central;  quotations located by section.  Copyright.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 46a.

      Section Furuncular myiasis, (a) Dermatobia hominis:  “The eggs are attached to the abdomen of a bloodsucking intermediary mosquito, a method of egg delivery called phoresis”. ↩

    2. 46b.

      Section Furuncular myiasis, (a) Dermatobia hominis:  “Within 5 to 10 weeks, the parasite goes to the second instar (stage II) and eventually to a third instar (stage III), when it leaves the host, during the night or early morning, to pupate in the soil”. ↩

    3. 46c.

      Section Furuncular myiasis, (a) Dermatobia hominis:  “A fatal case where the larva penetrated the brain through the incompletely ossified bone of the skull of a very young child was reported”. ↩ ↩

    4. 46d.

      Section Furuncular myiasis, (a) Dermatobia hominis:  “Dermatobia hominis is the most economically important cuterebrid fly and the most common cause of myiasis in the Americas.” ↩

    5. 46e.

      Table 2:  “Free living and may initiate myiasis”.  “Free living and unable to initiate myiasis; may be involved once animal is infested by other species”. ↩

  47. 47.

    Kugeler, Kiersten J. et al.  “Estimating the Frequency of Lyme Disease Diagnoses, United States, 2010–2018.”  Emerging Infectious Diseases 27(2):616–619.  2021.  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  Public domain.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 47a.

      Section Abstract:  “we estimated that Lyme disease was diagnosed and treated in ≈476,000 patients in the United States annually during 2010–2018”. ↩

  48. 48.

    Jongejan, F., and G. Uilenberg.  “The global importance of ticks.”  Parasitology 129(S1):S3–S14.  2004.  Abstract only.  The full text is behind a paywall.  Copyright.

    1. 48a.

      Section Abstract:  “Approximately 10% of the currently known 867 tick species act as vectors of a broad range of pathogens of domestic animals and humans and are also responsible for damage directly due to their feeding behaviour.”  “The impact on the global economy is considered to be high and although some estimates are given, there is a lack of reliable data.” ↩

  49. 49.

    World Health Organization.  “Plague.”  WHO fact sheets.  Jul 7, 2022.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Read from the downloaded page.  Copyright.

    1. 49a.

      Section Key facts:  “It was known as the "Black Death" during the fourteenth century, causing more than 50 million deaths in Europe.” ↩

    2. 49b.

      Section Key facts:  “Plague can be a very severe disease in people, with a case-fatality ratio of 30% to 60% for the bubonic type, and is always fatal for the pneumonic kind when left untreated.” ↩

  50. 50.

    Raoult, Didier, and Véronique Roux.  “The Body Louse as a Vector of Reemerging Human Diseases.”  Clinical Infectious Diseases 29(4):888–911.  1999.  Abstract only.  The full text is behind a paywall, so no count of cases or deaths is given here.  Copyright.

    1. 50a.

      Section Abstract:  “Three pathogenic bacteria are transmitted by the body louse.”  “Rickettsia prowazekii is the agent of epidemic typhus. The most recent outbreak (and the largest since World War II) was observed in Burundi.” ↩

  51. 51.

    Karimkhani, Chante et al.  “The global burden of scabies: a cross-sectional analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015.”  The Lancet Infectious Diseases 17(12):1247–1254.  2017.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  DALYs are disability-adjusted life-years.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 51a.

      Section Summary, Findings:  “Scabies was responsible for 0·21% of DALYs from all conditions studied by GBD 2015 worldwide.”  Section Methods:  “With an assumed zero mortality from scabies, YLDs were equivalent to disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs).” ↩

  52. 52.

    World Health Organization.  “Scabies.”  WHO fact sheets.  May 31, 2023.  Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.  Read from the downloaded page.  Copyright.

    1. 52a.

      Section Scope of the problem:  “Globally, it is estimated to affect more than 200 million people at any time and more than 400 million people cumulatively every year.” ↩

  53. 53.

    Xu, Guang et al.  “A review of the global epidemiology of scrub typhus.”  PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 11(11):e0006062.  2017.  Read as full text from PubMed Central.  Scrub typhus is carried by the larvae of trombiculid mites, known as chiggers.  CC BY.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 53a.

      Section Abstract:  “It threatens one billion people globally, and causes illness in one million people each year.” ↩