American Bird Conservancy’s Post

Being spring with a lot of us in the garden… here is the list, not the full list of plants toxic for pets; foxglove, daffodil, tulip, lily, iris, oleander, rhododendron , chrysanthemum, sago, cycad, zamia, autumn crocus, the brunfelisa family and those palms we discussed earlier. #plants #poisonousplantsforpets #emergencyvet

I'm always so fascinated by the hairs (bristles) on flea legs. Did you know there are over 2,500 species of fleas? Morphologic identification can be tricky, one aspect of identification requires distinguishing the number and location of bristles on the leg and foot. Pretty wild right?! One of the many ideas I have for a computer vision project is a model that can identify both live and static images of fleas globally, not just in the developed world. This would be an amazing project for SAS Viya because of its superior processing speed and IoT that can assess static images as well as real-time images. Wouldn't that be so cool?! Imagine, point your phone at a flea on your dog and identify it to the species level and get information about what pathogens the flea potentially vectors. SAS Viya could go even further because of it's native ability to connect to almost any data type, the identification of the flea could be augmented with data about the local prevalence of human and animal cases of pathogens vectored by the flea. What if you could also see data fleas found in your community through data from citizen scientists? You may be thinking, 'Who cares? It's a flea!' I get it, that's a fair question. But the truth is fleas are mobile, they cross between humans and animals with ease. Much like a long haul truck driver, they come with a lot of cargo. Flea cargo comes in the form of disease causing pathogens that range from the benign to the devastatingly serious. Not all fleas are created equal and a quick and easy way to identify a flea and know what pathogens it's likely to carry can impact the speed and accuracy of diagnosis for both humans and animals.

Pollen basket (Corbicula) European honey bee (Apis mellifera; Hymenoptera, Apidae) Corbicula is the part of tibia present in hind legs surrounded by a fringe of hairs, into which the bee collects the pollen. This function is performed by infertile female bees (i.e, worker bees acts as foragers) after 21 days of adult emergence. The pollen from plant is transferred to the pollen comb and then combed, pressed, compacted and packed to the pollen basket. It uses its middle leg to push the pollen pellet off of the corbicula in a back and forth, saw like motion until the pollen falls from it. Bees having corbiculae are Honey bees, Bumble bees, Stingless bees and Orchid bees.

Fleas may become dormant outside during the colder months but they continue to thrive indoors. Turning central heating on in the autumn can allow pupal development to continue. For advice on flea control, check out ESCCAP’s guideline and modular guide series on the control of ectoparasites in dogs and cats at www.esccap.org 🐕🐈🍂 #fleas #ectoparasite #parasites #parasitology

Part 1 of 3 LifeStory | Jackie “Anything we didn’t ask that you think should be asked?” www.trylifestory.com Part 2…Wednesday #lifestory #askquestions #getback #grandma #mom #letstalk #tellyourstory #savestories #makememories