Leishmaniasis has a long and terrible history with human beings, stretching back as far as human records exist and causing suffering and death for thousands of years. A few years ago, a hundred-million-year-old piece of Burmese amber was found to have trapped a sand fly that had sucked the blood of a reptile, most likely a dinosaur. Inside this sand fly, scientists discovered leishmania parasites, and in its proboscis, or sucking tube, they found reptilian blood cells mingled with the same parasites. Even dinosaurs got leishmaniasis.
