Rothschild, Miriam (1908–2005)

English zoologist and entomologist. She studied fleas and was the first to work out the flea jumping mechanism. She also studied fleas' reproductive cycles and linked this, in rabbits, to the hormonal changes within the host. She has written around 350 papers on entomology, zoology, neurophysiology, and chemistry.

She had no formal education until she was 17. She began degrees in zoology and English before settling upon marine biology. She studied snail-borne parasites for seven years till her laboratory was bombed in 1940. During the war she made a food for chickens from seaweed and worked decoding German communications.

She studied woodpigeons and was the first to realize that they carry bovine TB. After the war she wrote her first book Fleas, Flukes and Cuckoos. She spent 20 years studying fleas and also catalogued her father's extensive flea collection. She also studied butterflies.

Still active in her nineties, she worked on plants and studied the telepathic relationship between people and their pets. Her interest in animal consciousness has led her to press for reform in the treatment of animals in agriculture.