Introduction

Welcome to the Electronic Album of Parasitic Arthropods, which contains images of arthropods of interest to parasitologists and is intended to complement Sullivan (1999) & Dailey (1996). Images are of specimens that are commercially available, from my personal collection, and the collection of the late Dr. John Ketterer. Feel free to use these images in your teaching & learning.

This album is very much a work in progress. If you have prepared slides or images that you would like posted, please send them to me at the address(es) above (you will be credited). Also, please send any comments, questions, suggestions, or corrections to me.

A Note to Students
Though digital content creation & delivery has advanced greatly recently, this album is in no way intended to be a replacement for sitting down with a microscope & actual slides, which offer higher resolution and the opportunity to fine-focus up and down on the specimen to highlight specific structures and gain a 3-dimensional understanding of the organisms. My hope is that by making images easily accessible and including taxonomic characters will improve "gestalt" recognition of groups & organisms while facilitating the use of keys. Images are arranged as thumbnails that are linked to larger (640 X 480 pixel) images suitable for the web and more detailed observation. The order of presentation and comments about taxonomic features follow Dailey (1996), which is useful to have in hand when viewing the images. Enjoy!

The Album (thumbnails link to 640 X 480 pixel, typically 100-200 kb images)

Phylum: Arthropoda

Subphylum: Crustacea

Subphylum: Cheliceriformes

Class: Chelicerata

Ticks & Mites: Order Acari

Subphylum Uniramia

Class: Insecta

Fleas: Order Siphonaptera
Lice: Orders Anoplura & Mallophaga
Flies & Mosquitoes Order: Diptera
True Bugs: Order Hemiptera

Technical Notes
Most images were made on a Wolfe compound microscope or Meiji dissecting scope with a Nikon Coolpix 990, 3.3 megapixel camera. Images were processed and organized with Apple iPhoto 2 software.

References
Dailey, M.D. 1996. Meyer, Olsen, & Schmidt’s Essentials of Parasitology, 6th edition. Wm. C. Brown Publishers. Dubuque, IA.

Sullivan, J.T. 1999. Electronic Atlas of Parasitology CD-ROM. McGraw Hill, Inc. Dubuque, IA.