Yersinia Pestis Bunny

A 50-year-old man has been confirmed with New Mexico's first plague case of 2008. The man was hospitalized, but now is recovering at home, the state Department of Health said Friday. It was the first case of plague ever reported in an Eddy County resident, the department said. The man most likely was exposed to plague while hunting and skinning rabbits a few days before falling ill, authorities said. The department plans an investigation in the area to look for plague in other rabbits.
- Albuquerque Tribune (Link here)

Yersinia pestis is a Gram-negative facultative anaerobic bipolar-staining (giving it a safety pin appearance) bacillus bacterium belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. The infectious agent of bubonic plague, Y. pestis infection can also cause pneumonic and septicemic plague. All three forms have been responsible for high mortality rates in epidemics throughout human history, including the Black Death that accounted for the death of approximately one-third of the European population in 1347 to 1353.
- Wikipedia