Five Fun Facts About Fleas

 

Fleas. Adam had ’em. 20th century American poet Strickland Gillilan penned these words, long considered the world’s shortest poem. (More recently, Muhammad Ali fans claimed that he knocked Gillilan out of the ring with his own brief couplet, Me. Whee!)

 

Super Flea. Cat fleas are respected high, and long, jumpers, achieving heights of up to 8 inches and distances of 19 inches.¹ Relatively speaking, we would have to leap upward the length of a football field or forward about two-and-a-half city blocks to match that level of athleticism.

 

Eating again? Adult fleas may take as many as 15 blood meals a day.² A female flea can consume up to 15 times her body weight daily.³

 

Spit happens. Blame flea allergy dermatitis (FAD), or flea bite hypersensitivity, for all of the scratching infested dogs do. FAD is the most common dermatologic disease among domestic dogs in the United States. Cats can get it, too.⁴

 

More dangerous than they look. Although the oriental rat flea is the primary vector of bubonic plague and murine typhus, the fleas we generally encounter in homes (cat fleas) pose less serious, albeit real, health risks. These parasites are intermediate hosts of tapeworms, which can infect humans when accidentally ingested.⁵ Flea anemia can be a concern for host pets as well.⁶

 

 

¹FleaScience.com

²Purdue University Entomology Extension

³Mallis Handbook of Pest Control, Tenth Edition

⁴The Merck Veterinary Manual

⁵Mallis Handbook of Pest Control, Tenth Edition

⁶vetinfo.com

 

Game of Fleas. In many languages, “Tiddlywinks” is known as the Game of Fleas — for example, “jeu de puce” in French — because the “winks” are always hopping (source: thebiggamehunter.com).