PataKingdom: Anim

Brief Information

Fleas usually relate to epidemics due to the core role they play in spreading devastating diseases like plagues, making them one of the most undesirable creatures. Such rodent fast jumping insects have a high reproduction rate and infiltrate all parts of the house, and should therefore be eliminated quickly. Fleas are one of the most common parasites worldwide, with +2500 species/subspecies around the world.

Cat Flea

(Ctenocephalides Felis) (Ctenocephalides felis)

Cat Flea
(Ctenocephalides Felis)
The most common local fleas. Despite the name they hold, cat fleas can also be found in both cats and dogs furry, and may bite nearby humans.
Features
• Size: 1-3 mm long.
• Color: reddish brown.
• Wingless.
• Flat body.
• Strong rear legs for jumping.
• Lifespan: short.
• Reproduction rate: rapid.
Adult females can lay one white and oval egg/hour which is small and may reach 0.5 mm long; a flea can detach easily from animals furs due to its smooth dry surface, to fall on carpets and house furniture, where it eventually hatches into larva.

Dog Flea (Ctenocephalides Canis) (Ctenocephalides canis)

Dog fleas feed on mammals, including dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, foxes and humans.
Features
• Size: identical to that of cat flea, if seen by human eye.
• Color: reddish brown.
We can tell the difference between cat and dog fleas only by using a microscope, to recognize that a dog flea’s head is more rounded, and the tibiae exhibit more setae-bearing notches.
Adult females can lay hundreds of white and oval egg during its lifetime, which extends 2-4 weeks, and each egg may reach 0.5 mm long, and can detach easily from animals furs due to its due to its smooth dry surface like those of the cat fleas, to fall on other surfaces around the house.
Dog fleas spread worldwide, and are considered as one of the most common fleas in some European countries inter alia Ireland, Greece and Hungary. We can also find them in the USA especially in north areas, though being outnumbered by cat fleas.

Human Flea (Pulex Irritans) (Pulex irritans)

Human Flea (Pulex Irritans)
The human flea is a cosmopolitan flea species that has a wide host of hypercarnivores including humans. It is more common than dog flea and causes disturbance and itching sensation for its hosts. Moreover, it can act as an intermediate host for tapeworms and Typhoid, and be a carrier of plague bacterium that brought humanity into catastrophe long time before.
The human flea is wingless and features almost other flea species features, including the reddish brown color and the flat body, with a slight length difference in favor of human flea, reaching at 4 mm.
Life Cycle
Its life cycle does not seem different from that of other flea species. However, the human flea reproduces abundantly and more efficiently in stables and farms where fertilizers and ruins can keep the eggs warm and moist when they fall to the ground. The human flea has a lifespan of 2 years, exceeding most other flea species lifespans. It takes about 4-6 days for the egg to hatch.

Other Common Flea Species, enlist:

• Northern rat flea,
• Eastern rat flea,
• Rabbit flea,
• Fleas of poultry, and
• Squirrel fleas.
Despite having a wide-range of hosts including cats, dogs and humans, the human fleas usually prefer and depend on other hosts, as implied by the names listed above.

Diseases infected by Fleas

Fleas can carry critical diseases, including:

1) Plague

Plague is a historical epidemic infamous of the remarkable effect and result it leaves and yields wherever it disseminates and spreads. However, the modern treatments and fighting approaches have made it easy to combat and control the plague spread. The overall casualties, in the 1960s, totaled 1000-6000 cases of which 100-200 were fatalities.

Plague is originally a disease that infects and inhabits rodents for a long period of time, and is transmitted to the human body by the fleas that live on the hosts.

2) Endemic Typhus

This disease is also known as murine typhus or flea-borne typhus. Endemic typhus fever is a disease caused by bacteria called Rickettsia Typhi or Rickettsia Mooseri. It reproduces in the gastrointestinal tract, but on the contrary of the plague bacterium, does not block the tract. R. Typhi enters the skin by itching and spreads through the bloodstream to infect the endothelium, epithelium, eyes, nose and mouth.

3) Flea Tapeworm (Dipylidium Caninum)

Example Dipylidium Caninum

Dipylidium caninum infects organisms, like dogs, cats, and sometimes humans. Hymenolopis Diminuta, on the other hand, infects rats and sometimes humans.
How does it infect humans and rats?
It actively crawls out of the anus of the host. The gravid proglottids once out of the definitive host release eggs. Then, an intermediate host will ingest an egg, which develops into a cysticercoid larva. The cysticercoid larva remains viable, until the flea hatches to an adult.
Vertebrates can also be infected by ingesting the fleas while cleaning their bodies. The same thing goes for the children when they play with or kiss their pet cats and dogs.