[2] In goats and sheep, B. melitensis can cause abortion, stillbirth, and weak offspring for the first gestation after the animal is infected.

Brucellosis can be confirmed with the help of post mortem lesions in the reproductive tract, udders, and supramammary lymph nodes.

[5] In 1887, Micrococcus melitensis was isolated in Malta by David Bruce from the spleen of a soldier who had died from acute brucellosis.

[6] The mechanism of transmission was not determined until 1905, when Temi Żammit found that apparently healthy goats could infect humans with M. melitensis via their milk.

[8] The bacterium was detected in a 3200-year-old cheese which was found in the Tomb of Ptahmose (vizier) in 2010, by researchers at the University of Catania.