On the Rat-Fleas in Ducksom and Kwangnaru Areas of Seoul City

서울시 뚝섬, 광나루 일대의 쥐벼룩에 대하여

A rat-fleas survey was carried out in Ducksonm and Kwangnaru areas of Seoul city from Janurary to December 1955 . In this survey, 1,204 redents were trapped alive and 740 of which being Rattus norvegicus, 457 Apodemus agrarius, 5 Eutamiias asiaticus and 2 shrewes ((crocidura rusila). On these rodents 270 fleas were collected and identified thus : Ceratopylidae : Monopsyllus anisus (Rothschild 1908) ···200 Leptosylla segnis(Schonherr, 1832)···1 Hystrichopsyllidae : Ctenophthalmus congener, Rothschild ···43 Neopsylla bidentiformis (Wagner, 1893)···11 Stenoponia sidimi Marikovsky, 1936···9 Pulcidae : Xenopsylla cheopis (Rothschild, 1903)···6 On the average 8.5% of the rodents were infestated with fleas. The infestation rate showed a marked varying degree in a year and three high incidence peaks in Spring (10.3%), Summer (11.4%-11.8%) and Winter (13.7%). The average number of fleas per rat (flea-index) was 0.22 for the whole year with a maximum of 0.41 in December and a minimum of 0.03 in February. Of all, the most prevalent species are Monopsyllus anisus (74.1%) and secondly Ctenophthalmus congener (15.9%). both species occupied 90% of all. Xenopsylla cheopis, a known vector of plague, was found very rare in our survey and only appeared in Winter. The striking lower incidence of flea-index compared with previous data (6.6 by Nagahana, 1931-1936) appears to be due to the nationwide application of DDT and BHC insecticides since 1945.