*ON THE SEA FLEA*

Pliny mentions the Sea Flea, a creature believed to disturb the sleep of fish in the sea at night.

Kiranides called this little beast the *Psyllus marinus*. Niphus also records this animal, though he subsequently confuses it with the Scolopendra. Rondelet asserts that the sea flea is a small creature covered with a thin shell; he claims its face resembles a little man or a monkey, while its other parts are similar to a locust, with tail appendages like those of a shrimp. He identifies this as the marine flea—the *psyllon thalattion*—mentioned by Aristotle in his discussions on the sleep of fish.

In truth, however, we can only surmise from Rondelet’s description that he took a smaller variety of marine shrimp to be the sea flea. Consequently, we provide here another illustration discovered in a public museum, which differs greatly from Rondelet’s image, as the reader may clearly observe.

*The sea flea, depicted from both sides.*