A bacterial species that causes plague in humans, rodents, cats, and many other mammals; it is transmitted from rat to rat and from rat to human host by as many as 30 species of flea, including the rat flea Xenopsylla; the bacterium can also be transmitted by aerosol droplets dispersed by humans or animals (especially cats) manifesting a pneumonic form of plague, or by deliberate dissemination by means of an aerosol mechanism as a form of bioterrorism; the bacterium is the type species of the genus Yersinia.
Synonyms
Kitasato bacillus, Pasteurella pestis, plague bacillus