Ecological specialization to restricted diet niches is driven by obligate, and often maternally inherited, symbionts in many arthropod lineages. These heritable symbionts typically form evolutionarily stable associations with arthropods that can last for millions of years. Ticks were recently found to harbour such an obligate symbiont, Coxiella ‐ LE , that synthesizes B vitamins and cofactors not obtained in sufficient quantit...

Fleas are acknowledged vectors and reservoirs of various bacteria that present a wide range of pathogenicity. In this study, fleas collected from wild rodents from the Negev desert in southern Israel were tested for Rickettsia DNA by targeting the 16S rRNA ( rrs) gene. Thirty‐eight Xenopsylla ramesis , 91 Synosternus cleopatrae and 15 Leptopsylla flea pools (a total of 568 fleas) were screened. Rickettsia DNA was detected in 1...