ancient hairy tick found in New Jersey

[Robin Leech]

Marvellous find.  All we need now is to find a mammal, bird or reptile that
it was living on.
Carlos is a wonderful genus name, but I question the specific epithet of
"jerseyi".  This particular form means that it was named after a MAN named
"Jersey".  In its present form, it is not an noun in aposition, and it is
not named after the region of New Jersey (jerseyensis).
Robin Leech

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert A. (Bob) Morris" <ram at CS.UMB.EDU>
To: <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2001 10:49 PM
Subject: ancient hairy tick found in New Jersey


> If you watch the Sopranos or grew up in New Jersey (I qualify on both
> counts), you may know that many strange things are buried in New
> Jersey, and the headline at abcnews.com will not surprise you:
>
> "Ancient Blood-Sucker Found in New Jersey"
>
> The story cites an article by Grimaldi and Klompen in the current
> Annals of Entomological Society of America in which the authors report
> a 90 million year old, hairy backed, tick Carlos jerseyi, embedded in
> amber from New Jersey. Apparently this pushes back an estimate of the
> age of the order (Acarina?) some 50 million years.
>
>
> Bob Morris