A C-minus student, he majored in wood shop. And His Bug This is the little guy that causes all that itching. Ralph Eckerlin is proud to say he has fleas and lots of them. Some 22,000 creepy-crawlies are mounted on slides and preserved in alcohol in the biology professor's office at Northern Virginia Community College, where he is known as a leading pulicologist, or flea expert. There are only about 10 pulicologists in the United States, less than 100 in the world.
Fleas are interesting.
They carry diseases and they tell us stories. The new flea doesn't have a name yet. But Eckerlin hopes his research will help fight diseases. Eckerlin is bound for Central America next month, and the Food and Drug Administration might fund his trip to help find the origin of cyclospora, a non-flea parasite found on fruit and meat that can cause extreme food poisoning. Scientists believe cyclospora could live off mammals or lizards.