The little-known relationship between class insecta and rodents

Abstract

Rodents are one of the largest order of mammals and they are ubiquitous worldwide. Research has been done over the past years globally to understand the function and ecological role of rodents. However little has been done to unravel the type of relationships which exist between rodents and insects across the taxa. In this article a description of rodents relationship with some insect species and some diseases was reviewed. The information was got from reviewing previous studies using online databases like PubMed, Hinari and google scholar. Insects in particular of the following orders: Coleoptera, Diptera and Siphonaptera have been found to associate more with rodents as a source of food, act as biological vectors for microorganisms, hosts for sucking insects and important in the obligatory ectoparasitism point for rodents. The mutual relationship which exists between rodents and fleas for instance is of great concern and attracts global attention from researchers, ecologists and medical practitioners.

Keywords

• biodiversity
• ectoparasite
• insect
• rodentia